


The Fox Witch

by moonmayhem



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Bullying, Choking, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Halloween, Harassment, Horror, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Kitsune, Magic, Murder, Nightmare death, Nightmares, Self-Defense, Torture, Witchcraft, Witches, Yôkai, fox inarizaki, kids are assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonmayhem/pseuds/moonmayhem
Summary: A tale of a town with a Kitsune infestation. As a newcomer, neighbors and local townspeople warn you of the dangers of the night, but having been called a danger one too many times yourself, the whispers intrigue you. What unfurls is a supernatural, yet wholesome relationship between you and an odd, misunderstood skulk of foxes.
Relationships: Akagi Michinari/Reader, Ginjima Hitoshi/Reader, Inarizaki Volleyball Club/Reader, Kita Shinsuke/Reader, Miya Atsumu/Reader, Miya Osamu/Reader, Ojiro Aran/Reader, Oomimi Ren/Reader, Suna Rintarou/Reader
Comments: 59
Kudos: 325





	1. Company

**Author's Note:**

> Please take my Yōkai, deity, and Japanese myth knowledge with a grain of salt. There were/are so many stories given, it was difficult for me just to classify the different kinds of Kitsune bc every website said something different.

There is an eerie silence that ripples across the town at night when the fog rolls in. The frogs don’t croak; the crickets don’t chirp, and the owls don’t hoot. The people in town know not to leave their houses—double, triple checking the locks and leaving an offering outside their doors with a request to be left alone. Midnight is nothing but dead, cold silence and the thickest fog one has ever seen.

Tales of fox spirits that slink around at night, seducing their way into the beds of married men. The mysterious sickness and misfortune that befalls those that speak ill of them. And their powers of possession that equates to the painful experience of housing a demon.

They all have been muttered in hushed tones around the crackling of a fireplace and the dim illumination of candlelight. You have heard them first hand, warned by the elders that live around you not to go out at night, and maybe it’s the boredom in your eyes or the apathy in your smile, but they know you won’t listen.

It’s why they shun you. It’s why they scurry away from you in the aisles of the grocery store; why mom’s snatch their children’s hand, dragging them towards the cash register in a fluster. It’s why the rumors about you start.

_She’s possessed by one. She must be._

_A witch._

_More like a bitch._

You’re used to it. The vitriol having been a normal occurrence since childhood. Being a little different, a little less scared of the unknown, and the ghouls and ghosts that inhabit the dark have marked you as unique. Uncommon. Unusual. Peculiar. _Odd_. Everything antonymous with the word _normal_ has been used to describe your character in some shape or form.

During childhood, it was only you and your mother, and occasionally the chitter chattering in the walls that followed the two of you wherever you went. The twin-tailed cats that slinked across your mother’s shoulders while she cooked dinner— _Kuroo_ , you remembered, and his leisure companion, _Kenma._ They would come around with their own tiny pack, each having told their names to your mother whenever they agreed through a contract to stay.

In the gardens of the backyard, snakes would come and listen to the stories of the boys that teased you at school. _Witch_ , they would chant, _you’re a witch!_

At school, in the fourth stall of the bathroom, you blinked at the masked man asking, “red paper or blue paper?” Your mother had burned the following words into the back of your mind: _Do not answer it. Keep your talisman close and leave. Never use that bathroom again. Answering red or blue could leave the skin of your face flayed, or the breath strangled out of you._

Cucumbers were left by riverbanks when you wanted a friend. Kappa, with their deep green scaly skin and webbed minor appendages, would rise from the water and keep you company. They are kind to you once befriended. They bring fresh fish for you and your mother, and show you how they open mollusks with their beaks, dropping them into the container you always bring. They set the bone in your arm the time someone pushed you off the jungle gym, yelling about how your family was cursed, and you broke it.

After that incident, they asked if you would bring the classmate by for a picnic. After all, children are the only things Kappa enjoy more than cucumbers.

So, despite the whispers and the warnings and the rumors, you’re currently sitting in the front yard, teacup in hand, in the middle of the night watching as the fog rolls in.

There are the whispers that turn into laughing, and shadows that turn into solid forms. You see them, young men that emerge from the fog like a pack of trained dogs with their white and black-haired leader guiding them forward.

Closing your eyes, you lean back in your chair and inhale the calming night air. The days are brash, and much too taxing on your six senses not to take advantage of the dark tranquility the fox spirits bring along with them from the shrine.

“Do you think keeping yer eyes shut will keep ya safe?”

The voice comes from all around you like a curling smoke; the words accompanied by a heckling laugh and a stern reprimanding from one of the others.

“Atsumu, leave the poor human alone.”

When you open your eyes, a pair of large hooded ones are staring back at you with a smirk. “Well, little one? No offerin’ for yer Kitsune spirits?”

“You look cold,” is how you respond, sipping your tea.

The fox’s nose twitches as a wind kicks up. The sharp glint in his eyes indicates that he is bothered by your lackadaisical attitude towards him.

Another speaks up. He has a blank expression on his face. “Hurry up, I’m hungry.”

“I agree with Suna, ‘Tsumu. There are other houses, let’s leave this one alone.”

As he turns to follow his friends, you speak once more. “You’re all well over 100 years old, then?”

Kitsune, when they turn 100, get the ability to shape shift into humans. Although, the tales say the forms are usually that of beautiful and seductive women, not men in their twenties.

The one with the blank expression—Suna, twitches his head to the side. “You know yer stuff, huh?”

With a hum, you nod. “Feel free to come back after if you haven’t eaten your fill.”

The twin with the darker hair grins sharply and with too many teeth, “We’re insatiable.”

The tall, dark-skinned fox with the golden brown eyes chuckles, “Are ya crazy, lady?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

The leader, the one with the strongest aura that brought them forward out of the fog, smiles and something, like a whisper in the wind, tells you an expression like that is few and far between.

* * *

Not that you normally leave your front door wide open for random men to traipse through at night, but you let the smell of the food you were preparing waft out into the streets for them to follow. The feeling you got from the foxes was nothing short of benevolent. They were all Zenko foxes, all in possession of nine tails, yet the younger ones seemed to pose as more mischievous beings. Perhaps they emoted the characteristics of the Yako fox spirits the town believed them to be.

Floor boards creak, and there is the soft tuft of the front door being gently closed. They are trying to be as quiet as possible. In the corner of your eye you can see a shadow, small and quick as it darts through your home. Another weaves its way between your legs, but it is nothing but a tickle against your skin before it disappears.

When you turn around in the kitchen, away from the pots of food filled to the brim, the oldest Kitsune is sitting calmly on the couch between the one with thin, scary looking eyes, and the one you previously described with the golden brown eyes. Names. You need names.

“What do you all go by?”

“I go by Kita,” the eldest speaks, “Kita Shinsuke.”

“Ojiro Aran. Please, call me Aran.”

“Omimi Ren.”

A delighted smirk curls up the corner of your mouth. “Did you give yourselves those names?”

They nod, watching as you bring forward plates of food for them. “You know we don’t eat.”

“In order to live, yes, but I’ve already made all this food. With the tales I was told by the townspeople, I expected to stumble upon a few Nogitsunes running around causing havoc.”

In a playful tone, another one of the older foxes pops their head in from a dark hallway of your house, and plops himself down in front of the couch, legs crossed and back straight up.

“What are we then?” His question is laced with curiosity. He seems genuinely interested in how much you truly know. The friendly grin on his face is evidence of that. “I’m Akagi Michinari, by the way!”

“All four of you are Tenko Kitsune. All varying in age, one of you feels to be on the verge of becoming a Kūko, retiring out of your duties to serve the deity Inari.”

“Shinsuke ranked quicker than I did, although I’m older.” Aran bumped his shoulder into Kita. “He’s about 300 years away from retirement.”

“So soon,” you laughed; jokingly sarcastic, given your own short lifespan.

Omimi clears his throat, “The others are snooping through your house. Are you alright with that?”

You shrug. The four foxes are already tucking into the food you supplied them and you are happy they look to be enjoying the taste despite its lack of necessity.

“It doesn’t bother me. They’ll get bored, eventually.”

Another shadow peeks itself around the corner before shifting into a physical form.

“You cooked so much.”

It was one of the twins. The one with the darker hair, but same inquisitive eyes as his brother. He hovers around it, unsure if he’s allowed to indulge the same way those older than him have been allowed to.

“Tell me your name and you can help yourself.”

“Miya Osamu. My brother is Atsumu, but you can call him any insult ya want.” You chuckle while Osamu piles his plate up as high as it allows him without food tumbling off of the edges. “Inari-sama named us.”

“That’s wonderful. Your last names mean ‘shrine.’” He nods; “Were the two of you born there?”

Around a mouth full of food, he says yes.

“Is there a reason he acts more like a little delinquent?”

Osamu stops chewing and his eyes glance up at the other foxes like he’s requesting permission to tell or asking them to take charge themselves.

“He’s upset that the humans fear us.” The one called Suna comes from the stairs, a fluffy blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he, too, fixes himself a plate. “Atsumu decided that if they saw him as a terrifying, devious fox, then he’d pretend to be just that.”

Suna, wrapped up in your blanket and his plate settled on your knees, scoots close to your personal space.

“Thanks for the food.”

There’s a twinkle in your eyes as you beam at him. The wood chimes hanging from the corner of your ceiling softly bump into one another from the burst of energy.

“I’m glad!”

“You can call me Rin,” he mutters under his breath, shockingly bashful.

“Ya talk too much.” Atsumu must’ve heard Rin’s words because he looks perturbed.

His footsteps are loud across your wooden floorboards and there is the sound of the others following close behind. The golden-haired Miya pays you no mind even as he makes his plate and sits on the floor close to his brother to eat.

“Ya whine too much,” Osamu retorts.

“Do not!”

“Do too!”

“Shut yer _trap_ , ‘samu!”

“Quiet, both of ya,” Kita intervenes. “Eat the food that—,” he suddenly stops and looks at you with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”

“Y/n,” you grin, soft eyes roaming over the skulk of fox spirits sitting around you. “But the townspeople love to call me a witch.”

This is the way someone like you gains a companion; a familiar to help with tasks, both innocent and malevolent. A familiar partakes in magical services, and a Kitsune with its ability to shape-shift, possess, or simply play tricks, is a wonderful investment.

Although, all that you really want is their company.

* * *

One by one, each of them finds refuge inside your home on different days of the week. This began three weeks after you welcomed the Kitsune into your house. Osamu came by first, hungry little animal that he is, knocking at your door in his human shape, asking for food.

“I can eat more in this form,” he reasons. “The offerings left outside are always so old and stale.”

You’re sure that they do it on purpose, hoping the offerings are just the bare minimum to keep the big scary omens away from their homes. Yet, Kita has told you he just hates when humans waste food, _especially_ rice.

“Okay,” you titter. “Come sit and have lunch with me.”

He sits at the table and waits patiently. Comfortable enough that his fox ears and tail appear suddenly; his ears are twitching and turning toward far-off sounds while his tail swishes through the back of the chair from side to side.

“Comfortable?” You inquire, placing a dish in front of him as you surround with a few other side dishes.

Osamu tilts his head and his ears almost flutter. It’s honestly really cute to look at. “What makes you ask that?”

Before sitting down across from him, your fingertip boops the very tip of one of his ears. “You’re cosplaying in front of me.”

“Cosplay?!” His hands shoot up to hold down his ears and there is a bright blush that pinks his cheeks. “Does it freak ya out?”

“Not in the slightest. It’s endearing, actually. I’m honored that you feel comfortable enough around me that you subconsciously let out your ears and tail.”

“It’s the food,” you hear him mutter around a mouthful. “Haven’t had anything this fresh in a very long time.”

“Mm, feel free to stop by for a bite to eat whenever you’d like. I’d love the company.”

Osamu’s eyes sparkled widely with full, round cheeks trying to move in a smile. He dug into the food with a newfound vigor, knowing that despite his lack of need for the resource, his desire for good food would be fulfilled through his new companion.

When he swallows around the food there is a playful look in his eyes. “You’re gonna regret offerin’ to feed me, Y/n. I told you I was insatiable, remember?”

You chuckle, “Yes, I definitely do.”

* * *

Atsumu, on the other hand, held a different hunger than his brother. It’s the competition that keeps him coming around. Each time he comes by, he requests that you go against him in some sort of game.

He hates losing. He becomes solemn, a quiet anger bubbling right behind his eyes like a geyser waiting to blow. One day, you beat him at pulling weeds—yes; he demanded the two of you compete to see who could get rid of the weeds on their side of the garden the fastest—and it brings upon an odd turn of events.

“Magic or no magic?”

“Magic, I’m tryin’ to win by advantage.”

“How tacky, Atsumu.”

“Whatever, if you’re not confident you can admit defeat right now.”

You wave his agitation off. “Let’s start on the count of three.”

_One, two, three._

With a simple lift of your index finger, all the weeds pull themselves from the soil, roots and all, and fall limply against the surrounding blades of grass.

When you turn to look at Atsumu’s work he is trying to set the weeds ablaze with his fox fire.

“Miya, you’re going to set my yard on fire!”

“Stop yer oinkin’, the yard is fine!” He rebuked.

Your nostrils flare as you watch him singe patches of grass much larger than necessary. This wasn’t like him. Sure, the two of you were fairly new to this relationship of sorts, but he wasn’t a cruel fox. Something must’ve happened that put him on edge.

“That’s enough, you’re ruining my grass, and you lost anyway. I didn’t even have to get my hands dirty.”

Atsumu immediately spun around and noticed you were, in fact, finished and he had lost. The anger that you were so used to seeing deflated as his shoulders dropped. “I can’t do a single thing right.”

Lazily, you blink back at him and gently chop the top of his head with your hand. “Follow me inside. I have some fatty tuna fresh from the market this morning. Hopefully that’ll stop your grumpiness!”

Atsumu grumbles before settling his eyes on the black patches of dead grass. He runs his hand over them, letting a bit more magic flow into the ground, restoring them to their once healthy glory before following you inside the house. He’d be damned if you beat him _and_ found him to be a nuisance. Besides, fatty tuna sounded very much like a winner’s reward.

It’s when he sits that he peers up at you. “Can ya stop callin’ me Miya when you’re pissed at me? I’d much rather you call me a foul-mouthed pig or somethin’.”

With a hand on your hip, you set a plate of fatty tuna in front of him, laid nicely on beds of rice. “That sounds much harsher than me calling you by your last name.”

“My last name sounds scarier when you’re mad. We’re friends, aren’t we? Just insult me like ‘samu does.”

 _Friends_ , you thought. _That’s nice._

“We’re friends.” You chirp, ruffling his hair giddily. “Do you want to talk about why you’re grumpier than usual?”

“Not really.” Atsumu says it almost too softly for you to hear. “Just fought with ‘samu is all.”

You understand that although the two of you are friends, maybe this level has yet to be unlocked. You let him know that whenever something is bothering him, he can seek you out whenever he would like. He doesn’t have to take about it, he can just stop in and take a break from anything that is stressing him out.

It’s the first time you see a genuine smile on his face.

* * *

Ginjima doesn’t come to you like the others. It is always in his animal form in the early evening hours, just before the sun has tucked itself away for the day. His fur is a glossy black with a tail that looks to have been dipped in powdered sugar. When he arrives, he yips once for attention at your back door and crinkles his eyes when you peek your head out of your workspace. You like to think he’s smiling at you.

“Come in, you little silver fox.”

With the opening of the door, he slinks in, bumps his head against your calf once, and disappears into your work room where you keep a cocoon of blankets for him to curl up in.

Sitting back at your work table littered with jars filled with assorted items and lit candles, you scribbled in the journal kept for charms and organic remedies. Pressed tightly inside were pieces of dried leaves, herbs, feathers, flower petals, and even a fingerprint of blood left behind accidentally.

On the shelves above the desk sit the journals created by your mother, her own spells and enchantments used for healing the wounded animals that came to her, and the occasional brave human. Gazing at Gin, your eyes tracked the steady expanding of his rib cage and your ears honed in on the subtle puffs of breath through his muzzle.

Leaning back in the chair, you decide to take a rest as well.

_“Y/n, darling, pass me the candle.”_

_The melted wax pooled around the bending flame so you passed it off to your mother with care, staring at it the whole time, willing it to not spill._

_She poured the wax out onto the tiny cork of the jar despite your best efforts, but it must’ve been crucial to the spell jar._

_“This is yours to wear.” She made sure the wax had cooled before tying the suede cord around the back of your neck. “Keep it on at all times. I’ll make you another when the protection power dwindles, alright?”_

_The magic and intention nestled inside the tiny glass jar felt like it buzzed against your skin. It was an odd sensation, rather distracting to be around a child’s neck, but it was necessary._

_“Yes, mother.”_

_“And, if it ever breaks, I want you to close your eyes and imagine me.” As if commanded, you shut your eyes and the pads of her thumbs smoothed over your eyelids. “Imagine me and I will come get you before anyone or anything unpleasant happens.”_

_It did, eventually—break, that is. It broke when an older girl shoved you down in a patch of grass, ripped at your protection jar and crushed it beneath her shoe._

_“Freak!” She snarled while two other girls worked to hold your arms down. “You and your mom are ugly freaks!”_

**_Close your eyes and imagine me._ **

_You tried. With your eyes closed you tried to imagine your mom, but then she started to kick you, and her two friends cackled nastily in your ears._

_“You both deserve to rot in hell!”_

_Because of the sharp force of one of her kicks, your eyes had flown open from the pain and leveled heavily onto the bully. She was now pinned in place. You could see her trying to struggle, to tug her limbs out of their stagnant state, but she was unlucky. Then, with eyes welled up with tears, she finally looked at you and terror contorted her features._

_Her friends called her name. Their laughter died out as they watched her shake. Their joking tones ceased to exist as they became frantic._

_You imagined not your mother, but the girl’s worst fears. It was you. You were there in her mind’s eye, controlling a gaggle of yōkai with a maniacal grin on your face. They descended upon her, tearing her apart slowly at your command. First it was an eyeball, then her fingers and toes. Her screams were too loud, too revolting, so they took out her tongue. Then, they yanked a shoulder out of its socket before slicing into the meat of her arm._

_Outside of her mind, it looked as if she was petrified, lost in her own waking nightmares. Yet you had never felt more powerful. The hot rush of being in control flooded every nerve, every vein, until it felt like you, too, were being consumed._

_Then the lights went out. A hand, the gentle scent of incense all too familiar to be anyone other than your mother, had covered your eyes. There was a thud after she muttered a slight prayer verse._

_It was then that you realized the two girls that held you down had already gone. You were standing, back pressed against your mother’s front as she slowly let you see light again._

_“What happened?” You asked as you blinked away the spots in your vision, only to see the girl passed out on the ground._

_“You, darling. You happened.” Her tone wasn’t accusatory, merely informative, but it still bubbled shame in your chest. “But don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”_

_She left your side to rest her hand over the girl’s forehead, most likely to rouse and make her forget what had occurred._

_It was then that you understood what the protection jar had really been for. It wasn’t made to protect you from yōkai or other evil spirits; she made it to protect people from_ **_you_ ** _._

Opening your eyes, you quickly realize that you are no longer in your chair, but lying cozily on the carpet of the room next to Ginjima’s blankets. Except, instead of him being tucked away inside them, he has his body draped across your chest and nestled his head into your neck.

Gin had most likely shifted back to his human form to settle you next to him before cozying back down onto you. He seemed to hold a powerful sense of responsibility towards you whenever he slept in your house. Often he’d follow behind while you went about your tasks for the day, waiting until you settled down so he could do the same. For whatever reason, perhaps he was worried about your well-being.

“I’ll make you meat-wrapped fries as thanks when you wake up,” you whisper.

There is a small rumble in response that makes you smile. Gently, you give the fur behind his ears a nice scratch and allow yourself the luxury of falling back to sleep.


	2. "I'll take care of it"

In an attempt to help the townspeople and your new spirit friends, you go door to door telling them that there’s no need for the offerings, since the Kitsune won’t harm them. You try to reason that they serve the deity in the temple and do not wish for anyone to waste food on them that will only sit out and collect bugs.

Some, nervous of the things you could do to them, merely nod their heads and meekly thank you for stopping by. Their doors are hardly ever open more than a crack. The others, however, don’t take kindly to your advice. Food, hot _and_ cold, is thrown on you.

“Vile woman!” They screech. “You want them to eat our souls!”

When you look down at yourself, the food that Kita did not want wasted is now sticking to your skin and staining your clothes. It’s a shame, really, always being more peculiar than the others. Maybe if you didn’t talk to spirits and yōkai, or manipulate the elements, you wouldn’t be hated as much.

The red door slams in your face; you stare into its material and wonder how quickly the boiling rage inside of your chest could ignite its fibers. Light wisps of smoke manifest around the door’s edges, gradually getting larger as the gaseous smell of overheating metal fills your nose.

If there wasn’t a door, then there would be nothing left between the two of you. No barrier to keep them safe from the _monsters_ they oh so feared.

You think about how funny it would be if you awaken the spleen worms inside of them. How the tiny parasitic yōkai would wriggle around inside the organ and cause havoc; and how developing hyperthermia spontaneously would make them fretful with the thought of being cursed by a witch; their body feeling as if it’s been set on fire from the inside out.

Then, your mind twists even more maliciously, thinking of the Tsuchigumo that lives in its giant silk pod in the forest nearby, and how the large arachnid probably hasn’t had a decent human meal in decades.

There were other choices. So _many_ to choose from, but which one should you pick?

_Do it. Melt it into the ground._

“Y/n.” The sound of your name snaps you out of the dissociative void. When you turn around, Aran is there with a heavy hand on your shoulder. The calming wisdom in his eyes centers you, and you can tell that he knows what troubles you. “Are you okay?”

“Probably not,” It comes out like a laugh, but it doesn’t _feel_ funny. “I wanted them to stop wasting food.”

The concern on his face is obvious as he looks you over. He could easily tell that the current ‘you’ was slipping away for a moment while your eyes bore a hole into the house in front of you. When he looks to the front door, he can see how the metal of it has slightly warped, and from the window is the terrified individual, clutching their prayer beads close to their chest.

Aran extends his arm across your shoulders and pulls you away. “Come on, let’s get ya back home and cleaned up.”

You let him guide you home while visualizing a harsh rain that is carried sideways by the wind, strong enough to sting the skin. This overwhelming melancholic feeling, something akin to shame, always accompanies the loss of control.

Right as the two of you cross the doorway to your home, the sky cracks open with rain descending in heavy sheets. And you, with the heavy pounding of it against the windows, imagine a hissing sound as it hits that red distorted door, steam rising from the contact points.

Aran stayed with you that night, wrapping you up in blankets after you changed into pajamas, and keeping you close to his natural warmth. Tucked into his side while in bed, he listened to the stories of your mother concocting charm after magic charm to suppress your emotions and abilities, but nothing was ever permanent.

Overtime, things got worse. Puberty was horrid. Hormonal imbalances and growing into a new version of yourself did not prove safe for the people in your life. Lashing out became common. Shattered glass, broken bones, forced hallucinations and yōkai attacks were all products of the rage coaxed out of you by others.

It was always the bullying. The hair pulling. The punches. The wicked words of the older women that called your mother _‘a fucking whore,’_ spat in your face because they were much too terrified to ever look her in the eye themselves. _A teenager will do_ , they probably thought. _A_ _teenager is an easy target_.

They never learned. They never connected the dots between the things you did and the spewing of other people’s abhorrent words about someone you cared for, but never about yourself. They were blinded from the cause, their biased eyes only seeing the effect.

And so, when another spoke of your mother with ill intent, you imagined terribly wicked things happening to them. Sometimes you made them watch, unable to move, the things you had in store for them. Other times a curse was quite the silencer. The taste of power licked its dark ink-link tendrils around your wrists and throat, always trying to manipulate you to do more. To push _further_ and break the people who hated the two of you beyond repair.

But then, your mother would pull you back from the edge of the cliff with love in her eyes, arms wrapped tightly around your shoulders and apologies muttered into the crown of your head. She’d clean up your messes, break the curses, and things would be okay for a short amount of time. _‘I’ll take care of it,’_ she would say.

Aran’s fingers dug into the base of your neck, massaging the muscle there to release any tension bundled up in the area. It was soothing. Soon enough your eyes had closed, and you drifted, but right before you did he asked a question.

“Do ya always get this cold afterward?”

“Mhmm, I’m not sure why.”

“That’s odd,” He graveled, “Get some sleep now.”

In the early morning hours, right as Aran is about to leave, you stop him with a tug at his fingers.

“Do me a favor?” You ask. “Don’t tell the others. Keep them away for a while, I’m afraid I’ll do something again.”

He mulls over the request before gently bumping his forehead into yours. “I won’t say a thing. Everything’ll be alright.”

The reassurance is tender and disturbs the butterflies resting in your stomach. You thank him quietly and watch as his form disappears into the morning mist, like he was never even there to begin with.

* * *

Sleep has evaded you too many nights since then. Aran kept his word. No one has come for food, a nap, or even a bit of company. It’s honestly quite lonely, but you know from experience that after an episode it was best to isolate yourself. It’s what has worked for you the last handful of years. Being spacy and more vulnerable is a nasty side effect; an invitation to parasitic beasts. Like the _thing_ hidden away in the corners of your mind that comes to play at night.

The nightmares are nothing new. They all begin in a dark, echoing room as a shadow of yourself stands in front of you, a wide bright grin with headlights for eyes taunts you.

 _“Nobody wants you._ ” The chuckle is sickly, wet sounding. It makes your skin crawl. “ _Your own mother sent you away.”_

“Stop it.”

_“Don’t you remember?”_

Images of your mother’s tear-stained face as she pushed you out the door flash through your mind.

“That isn’t what happened!” Your shout echoes distantly.

 _“Oh?”_ It— **you** —steps forward. The sound is like crunching bones that snap and pop loudly in the large space. _“But I was there. I remember.”_

A hand reaches out, and the cold, black nothingness overtakes your vision, nearly suffocating you. _“Remember what you did.”_

When you open your eyes, you’re being forced to re-enact the same scene you’ve gone over in your nightmares time after time.

You’ve just come back from the forest having visited the tree spirits for a couple of hours playing with them since they don’t get any visitors. When you walk into your home, there is a man with his hand wrapped tightly around your mother’s throat. For a second, you cannot process what’s happening, and then you hear the all too familiar word.

 _Whore_.

The word that buzzed in your ear like a pesky mosquito, stapling itself to your mother’s back whenever a man would knock on the door. There are always a few that request the help of a beautiful healer and suddenly assume they have a right to her body. Married, older, younger, spirit… it didn’t matter.

Your mother had contracted Kuroo and Kenma not to harm humans. So they are watching and hissing with a blue flame emitting from their twin tails, unable to make a single move to help. Utterly _helpless_.

In the split few seconds you’re processing, your mother’s eyes meet yours and she croaks out one word: **Run**.

Regrettably, you’re unable to listen. The fury ignites feverishly in your belly and the next time you blink; the man is on the floor, gasping for air as he claws at his own throat. Your eyes are glazed over as you watch, imagining a rope continuously wrapping around the man’s neck, getting tighter, and tighter, and _tighter_. He’s struggling and you can vaguely hear your mother’s cries for you to stop, but the man’s desperate flailing attempt to get the invisible constricting noose off of his neck is much too entertaining to hear her properly. 

Until there’s a loud crack, and he goes limp.

It’s the first and last time you ever see the two Nekomata shift into human forms. Kuroo rushes over to your mother, making sure that she’s alright while Kenma is trying his best to get you to look at him and to bring you back from wherever you’ve wandered.

There’s a gasp and suddenly you’re able to focus on your mother reaching towards you.

“You have to leave,” she pleads, her outstretched hand latching onto your reaching fingers. “I’ll take care of this, you have to _go!_ ”

Panic churns your stomach and seizes your chest. “But I—,”

“You know what they’ll say if you’re here, darling. _Please_.” She releases you to grip at the material of Kuroo’s shirt. “Get her out of here! Kenma and I will deal with him. There’s money in the fourth floorboard to the left of my bedroom door. Go, _go!_ ”

Kuroo rushes to collect all the things he believes you will need and takes the money. You’re still frozen next to your mother. She has a phone in hand, ready to call the police. You suppose she will call to report it, tell them she killed him in self-defense. You only hope they trust her, even with the reputation the two of you have built up while staying here. Especially the one you’ve created alone. Hopefully she’ll be safe with Kuroo and Kenma.

When Kuroo comes back, he takes your hand in his and tugs you out the door. In a brief instance, you turn back to your mother, eyes drier than they have ever been, and say, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says. “I’ll see you again soon.”

You’re ripped back into the dark room, the shadow of yourself still glaringly grinning.

_“She never came, you poor wretched thing.”_

“She couldn’t,” you reasoned. “They watched her for so long.”

_“Abandoned. Lonely. And_ **_then_ ** _what happened?”_

You shake your head. “Don’t, please.”

“ _What happened, Y/n?_ ”

You don’t answer.

The shadow circles you. Black, sticky goop for hands trails over your arms and neck, swallowing you. “ _She got sick and **died**! Boo-hoo, she left you behind!”_

Its cackling pulses like a bass in your ears with arms and legs now latching on tightly to your back; a parasite eating away at its host.

_“Accept me already.”_

Like tree branches, its fingers grow; extending out to slither down your sobbing throat. A syrupy consistency bubbles out trying to expel the thing working to crawl inside. Seeking to inhabit a place that it isn’t welcome. You’re drowning in it. Suffocating. Your eyes feel like they’re burning, leaking the same viscous liquid.

_“Become the despicable, devilish thing they believe you to be.”_

You’re clawing at your throat, unable to make a sound other than gurgling. There’s a panic synapsis lighting up your brain like Christmas lights, and you’re sure there are tears leaking out with the black ooze. Everything is overwhelming. You;re losing oxygen, you can’t speak or breathing, and no one is around to help. It’s too much. Every part of you feels like screaming as you scratch at each part of your body.

Then there is an eerie calmness that blankets over you as the wooziness sets in and blinking feels like a chore. This must be what dying is like: minutes of terror-stricken alarm and a thrashing endeavor to save yourself, then… almost nothing.

But, as your knees collide with the floor, vision dimming, and the nightmare starts to end, you have a thought before you ~~die~~ wake: **_Is this what my mother felt?_**

* * *

Once you feel as if enough time has passed, you decide to make a trip up to the shrine. Carrying enough sake and Inari-zushi for over a dozen people, you ascend the steps until arriving at the gate, bowing once and stepping forward with your left foot on the gate’s side. The entrance to the world of the deity is calm, yet it feels as if they have pushed a phantom hand inside to pull forward your very soul. One deep breath in and a gentle exhale out, and the process is complete.

Even with eyes like yours that can see what others cannot, there are even more peculiar things that happen in the realm of the deities. There are Blue herons with red eyes that watch shyly from their perched positions in the trees. If it had been nighttime their feathers would glow a gentle pastel blue, a harmless reminder that these birds—now yōkai—can breathe blue flames as well.

As you continue to walk towards the temple. There are paper lantern ghosts looking to have newly turned a century old with their excitement over your arrival. Its one eye and large lolling tongue disappear, trying desperately to trick you into believing it’s just a regular old paper lantern, but you’ve already seen it for what it is. Getting closer, it pops open its eye and springs out its tongue, laughing hysterically as it assumes that it caught you off guard.

Yūto and Riseki both smack the yōkai on the back of what you suppose is its head, and it hastily shuts up.

“What did we say about scarin’ the guests!” Riseki scolds.

“Or did ya wanna be sent elsewhere?” A blue flame flickers across Yūto’s fingers and the yōkai babbles incoherently, but they both seem to understand it. “Then watch that large tongue and mind yer manners.”

It is only when they turn to you that you notice their ears and tails. Almost as if your eyes needed time to adjust to the fresh additions, because now there were nine large poofs for tails moving behind their backs.

Riseki’s ears and tails match the color scheme of an Oreo cookie. His ears have a black trim, but the surrounding fur was white like the snow. His tails, from the angle you could see, were primarily white too, with a faint line of black fur down the middle of them.

Yūto had ears pointer than Riseki’s and looked to have more of a sandier brown to the fur that mixed with grey. His tails looked to be of a thicker fur than his friend’s; the grey fluffing them to fan out a bit wider than Riseki’s.

“You’re staring, Y/n!” The two of them were smirking as their tails swished back and forth. “Did our celestial good looks enchant you?”

“Hush,” you chuckled. “I’ve never seen your ears and tails before, I was admiring them.”

They both tilt their heads at the same time, in the same direction, and it takes everything within you plus biting your lip not to make a dog joke.

“That’s a lot of stuff you have there,” Yūto observes.

“I’ve brought sake and Inari-zushi for everyone as well as Inari-sama.” You look around the grounds, hoping to catch a glimpse of Suna or maybe Aran. “Where are the others?”

Riseki helps by taking some weight off of your shoulders and out of your hands. He’s staring at you, large eyes flickering over every inch of your face.

“Why do ya look like you haven’t slept?” He hands off your offerings to Yūto and carefully touches the gradually darkening circles under your eyes. “ _Are_ you sleeping?”

“Sometimes.” The sound is nothing but a grumble while you pout about his keen observation. Obviously the heady duty concealer hadn’t done a good enough job. “I’ve been having nightmares, it’s nothing serious.”

He elects to taking the rest of the items off of your hands by making Yūto carry them all, but when you protest he makes the argument of giving you a piggyback ride further into the temple where everyone else is performing their duties.

Yūto sighs theatrically. “Stop resisting, y/n. Just let the man carry you. He wants to be respectful of yer objections, but he also cares about yer health!”

The way Riseki is looking at you makes you give in. Puppy dog eyes have always been a weak spot for you.

He lowers his tails so you’re able to climb onto his back and once settled; they come up around you enveloping you in a soft furry cocoon. Your arms are draped over his shoulders and hand loosely around his neck. Maybe it’s the calming atmosphere of the kami’s realm, but if this had been a long journey you would have surely fallen asleep.

“Where’d all that food and sake come from?”

“Is Y/n here?”

“Yeah, it smells like her. Did you meet her by the gate?”

Yūto sets down the items. “Chill out, you three.”

The questions come from the twins and Kita. You can hear Atsumu and Osamu practically scenting the air with deep inhales and Kita asked about the offerings.

Riseki moves his tails out of the way, revealing your hiding place on his back. With your chin coming up to rest on his shoulder, you grin and wave. There is a pregnant pause as eight pairs of eyes stare back at you.

“No.” Gin comes up from behind, lifts up under your arms and pulls you away from Riseki.

“Why are you all so strong?”

Rin rolls his eyes. “We’re spiritual beings that’ve been alive for centuries, Y/n.”

“Right, correct. I remember.” You giggle when Ginjima pats your head. “Thank you, Gin-Gin.”

“Did she just call him Gin-Gin, ‘tsumu?” Osamu mutters.

“She did, ‘samu.”

Ignoring their eyes, you gesture at the things you’ve brought along. “This is for you and Inari-sama. I just wanted to bring it by as a thank you for spending time with me and, um, an apology for not being available for the last week.”

Again, they’re staring at you like you’ve suddenly grown two heads—although in this realm it wouldn’t exactly be suspicious. Aran and Kita both step forward. Both of them put a hand on either side of your face and tilt it up so they can look at you properly.

Aran tsks. “You haven’t been takin’ care of yourself.”

“Mm, have you been eating properly? I know ya feed these mangy mutts every time they disappear out of the shrine.”

“She’s been having nightmares,” Riseki interjects.

“Nightmares about what?” Rin appears at your left side, sounding concerned.

“I’d rather not talk about it if I’m honest.”

Aran’s eyes soften and the large ears atop his head fall slightly when you look directly at him. It’s clear that he has suspicions about what your nightmares may be about.

“Ok, we shouldn’t interrogate her, right?” Akagi leans his head in, reddish orange and white tipped tails delicately wrapping around you. “Nightmares can be _really_ personal.”

Kita keeps his hand on your cheek a bit longer, even as the others walk away. “You’re not alone anymore.”

The reassurance brings a sharp sting to your throat and a quivering to your lips. When you open your mouth, nothing comes out. Quickly, Kita wipes away the stray tears already slipping out of the corners of your eyes and wraps his tails around you in a gentle hug.

Atsumu groans, “Kita, ‘m starvin’!”

He turns to look at the others and they’ve already laid out everything you’ve brought and have set aside a hefty portion for the deity.

The older twin reaches out and tugs on your hand. “You’re sittin’ next to me. I’ve got a shoulder you can cry on.”

When Atsumu plops you down and sits to your left, Kita takes the right silently. Everyone is smiling and looking at you despite the way you’re having to bite your cheeks to keep from hiccuping and crying. When the food has been blessed and offered along with the sake, everyone talks amongst themselves, yet still reaching over one another to feed you from their chopsticks. Omimi is working to secure a plate for you, despite everyone else’s best efforts to feed you themselves. He seems to look more irritated as the shoving of rice into your cheeks turns you into a chipmunk. Your ears must be playing tricks on you when you hear something that sounds like _‘cute’_ leave his lips.

Your palms are fisted in the fabric of both Kita and Atsumu’s outfits. The tears are still coming, albeit sluggishly, but they are far from sorrowful. They’re happy and thankful for the gift of their companionship.

After finishing one particularly large mouthful, you drop your forehead onto Atsumu’s shoulder and hope that everything happening in this moment fills the hallways of your dreams tonight.

* * *

On more than one occasion, the _friendly_ people in your neighborhood would leave presents. Sometimes there would be notes of prayer for the household, hoping to help ward off any evil spirits, or they would send a Shinto priest to perform a purification on you and the surrounding area. But the gifts that impacted the most were the rocks thrown at you and your windows by the children that could never properly look you in the eye.

It didn’t happen often, but it had happened today, late in the afternoon while you were watering the plants in your front yard.

There was the shout, “Hey, Devil lady!” And before you could turn your head to look at the person calling you from the street, a large rock connected to the very right of your frontal bone, just narrowly missing your temple. And then another sharp pain splintered across your forehead when he threw another. There was the sound of running feet disturbing loose gravel, so you knew it was futile to put a face to the boy that threw the rock. The blood obscuring your vision wouldn’t have aided the situation well, anyway.

The overwhelming taste of metal seeped into your mouth. Not knowing how extensive the wounds were, you did your best to hurry inside to stop the bleeding.

The blood was everywhere. Your face and shirt looked as if it had been too close to a gruesome murder. Nausea boiled hotly in your stomach; not because of the pain thundering in your head and beneath the skin, but the horrifying appearance in the mirror. How many times had your mother seen this face, saturated in blood, looking back at her when you came home from school. How many times had she cleaned you up, covered the wounds with steri-strips, and kissed the pain away?

With a wet washcloth, you applied pressure to the cuts on your head to help slow the bleeding.

 _“The head bleeds like the rivers flow,”_ your mother would muse as she cleaned the cuts from childhood bullies, _“steadily and with grand purpose.”_

Focused on the pain, you didn’t sense the presence that crossed the threshold of your house. Head already unfurling a pain that was sure to blossom into a migraine, you were much too focused on that rather than the large number of bodies lingering behind you in the bathroom doorway.

“What in the goddess’ name happened to you?!”

You jump, dropping the washcloth with a sopping splat against the tile. Atsumu is looking at you, alarmed and disturbed with his hands slightly outstretched like he’s waiting to catch a fainting person.

The dried blood on your cheeks and underneath your chin tugged the skin slightly taunt when you opened your mouth to provide an excuse.

“Children,” you croak. “Just children.”

“ _Just_ children, my ass.”

“ _Suna_.”

Kita reprimands Rin for his language and you allow yourself a moment to smile, but it pulls at the edges of the gashes and the pain is just enough for you to wince.

He steps forward, picks up the washcloth and wrings it out in the sink. “Y/n, where are the medical supplies?”

You point to the cabinets under the sink while he rinses the cloth anew. Kita hands it over to Suna, instructing him to help wipe the blood off of your face, and Akagi decides he’ll run you a bath while you wait to be patched up.

Kita opens up the medical kit and takes out the items necessary to treat you.

“I can only take away a bit of the pain.” Rin’s words are quiet, and there is a deep furrow between his brows as he concentrates. “I’m sorry we can’t heal them.”

“No worries.” You reach up to smooth out the grimace lines. “You don’t want wrinkles for the next few centuries, do you?”

For a fraction of a second he’s stood with mouth agape, but immediately recovers to pull attention away from his blush, “Did you just get blood on me?”

“No, silly. It’s kinda dried anyway—,” you lift your hands to show him the dry dark red on your palms, “see?”

“Gross.” Rin has to wring the cloth out a few times, turning the running sink water a dirty rust color. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit, Y/n.”

“It’s nothing new.”

It’s not what he wants to hear, but it isn’t anything other than the truth. He can see the far off look in your eyes, the resigned smile sitting softly on your lips, and he wonders exactly how long you’ve carried this weight around.

Once the blood is wiped away and the wound has stopped weeping mostly, Kita steps forward to apply the steri-strips to both wounds.

“Go get changed, then come meet us all in the living room.”

Kita’s tone leaves no room for back talk or negotiation, so you listen to him without trouble. It’s when you leave to change your bloodstained attire that they discuss what they should do.

“Why the hell was she so calm?” Atsumu is burning up. There is a deep angry furrow in his brow while he sits, arms crossed and fuming. “That little ass _assaulted_ her!”

“We heard what she said.” Osamu mirrors his brother, furrowed brow and all, and looks up at Kita. “She said this shit ain’t new.”

Kita’s pacing. He’s on edge, anxious, something no one has really seen from him in their decades and centuries together. Calm is his default if he isn’t overthinking, and the fox rarely gets mad. _I’m too old for those trivial things_ , he reasons.

“There’s somethin’ wrong,” he says, eyes moving restlessly as he thinks and thinks and _thinks_.

Aran is the first to speak up. “She’s scared.” All eyes are on him. “When she came to the shrine she looked like she hadn’t slept properly in a while, right?”

“But what is she scared of?” Suna is pulling at the fringe on the throw pillow absently, eyes narrowed into slits while his mind tries to provide tangible reasons to your fear. “From what I’ve seen, she could easily defend herself if she wanted.”

“That’s part of the issue.” Aran shifts in his seat, uncomfortable and unsure on whether he should spill your secrets. “She fears herself.”

Akagi leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Aran, are ya keepin’ secrets from us?”

The question elicits a sigh from the older fox. “I don’t mean to be, Michi. It’s not my–,”

The groaning of the floorboards announces you in the hallway. Their eyes glow in the soft lamplight, and with them they can see your full body exhaustion as you lean against the wall. “It’s okay, Aran, I’ll tell them.”

There was so, so much more than needed to be told.


	3. Lonely

Aran’s quiet as you go about the motions, explaining to everyone what was already said to him. But it’s when you shift uncomfortably, step carefully forward and sit formally in front of them he, and everyone else, sit tall at attention.

You explain the nightmare. The dark black shadow that holds features identical to your open, apart from the cut open smile and blinding lights for eyes. How it forces you to re-experience the reason you left your mother behind and, as a last effort to ruin you, it drowns you with its own body.

“That _thing_ is terrifying,” you give a miserable smile and shrug your shoulders, “but I suppose it’s me.”

“‘s not you, Y/n.” Atsumu is still angry, but he softened during the storytelling. “You’re not like that.”

“Oh, really?” The sudden low dip in your voice startles the rest of them. Their bodies become rigid. “Atsumu, I hate to tell you, but I’m a much nastier thing than what you perceive me to be.”

There is the same icy chill that blows through your home, disturbing your wind chimes and causing a shiver to move through your friends. They all look at you expectantly, knowing that the magic surrounding them has spiked. They’re waiting for you to continue on with what you mean. Their curiosity is clear in their eyes, but they aren’t voicing a single thing.

Atsumu merely smirks. He loves to challenge you after all.

“Come on then,” he urges. “What’s so nasty about ya? Tell me.”

The faux intimidation in your body language soon deflates as the only words that come to mind are the ones that remind you of things forcibly left behind.

“I killed someone.”

The twins’ eyes are a few centimeters wider; Aran and Akagi mirror them, but seem to have frozen in place, too, as they look uncomfortably stiff. Ōmimi and Suna merely blink, still actively listening and possibly waiting for a Catch 22. Riseki and Yūto remain silent; they don’t know where to look, so they force themselves to look anywhere but you. Ginjima looks to be unsurprised by the revelation, like he has witnessed you have too many nightmares during your infrequent naps together not to have an inkling of your past. Then there’s Kita; silent, unmoving, but you notice the way his fingers are pressing just a bit too harshly into the meat of his biceps where his arms are crossed.

With eyes slipping shut, you recall the scene perpetually fresh in your mind. “I imagined a rope choking the life out of him the same way his hands wrapped around my mother’s throat, except I wanted it to be worse.” Brows knit together as your hand lifts to touch your esophagus. “I wanted him to feel his windpipe _crunch_ under the pressure. So I imagined the rope twisting itself as tightly as it would allow.” Your fingers fanned out, wrapping around your neck until your palm rested snuggly against your trachea. “Then there was a disgusting crack, and it was over.”

There are fingers around your wrist and an index finger and thumb gingerly trying to wiggle their way between your throat and palm. Opening your eyes, Suna is there, wrapped in that same blanket from the first time he entered your home. His sharp eyes and soft-lipped frown are a familiar comfort as you allow him to remove your hand himself. He stares at you, eyes pinning your gaze to him as he loosely holds your hand in his for a few long seconds before letting you go.

Osamu clears his throat, “Do ya regret it?”

“Not in the slightest.”

And there it is; in the minor tremors and slight jolt of muscles, they’re startled just like you knew they’d be, and you feel yourself beginning to revert into the emotional fetal position. The guarded, detached version of the person you became after your mother’s fate. The individual you were while promising not to care too deeply about anyone or anything else so as not to repeat the past. But that was before loneliness seeped into bone and you let in these foxes to fill the emptiness.

Perhaps that vulnerability is what you are currently regretting.

* * *

They couldn’t stay. The shrine still needed to be tended to, especially at night, so they left when the sun fell out of the sky and disappeared for the day. When they left, some of them didn’t quite know how to look at you. Maybe it was a trick of the mind, but you were so sure that the nervous movements were because of you. Kita, however, stayed. Speaking of how he was worried about your head and mental well-being after disclosing private matters of your past. Even with him there, you’re restless and can’t sleep, so you boil water and steep herbal leaves for a late night cup of tea to calm your nerves.

He finds you out on the front porch. It is 2:23AM and your hands are wrapped around the warm mug as you stare up into the night sky. He’s brought a blanket out that’s big enough for two, and he drapes it over your shoulders before settling down beside you and sharing its warmth.

He’s silent; waiting for you to speak when you’re ready. What about?—that’s for you to know, but he’s prepared to listen regardless of the topic.

“Have you heard of the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Kita?”

Kita lifts his hand and points directly at their location in the sky. “I have.”

“Do you know their story?” He shakes his head. So you proceed. “There are multiple versions of the story, but they were mother and son. Callisto, the mother, was turned into a bear by Hera because of jealousy and rage over her husband’s infidelity. Arcas, the son, almost killed his mother as she raised her claws in the air to hug him, thinking this wild creature would devour him. So, Zeus turned Arcas into a bear as well and put them both in the sky to protect them.”

Your fingers coming up to carefully trace the constellations in the air, a fond smile on your face.

“I used to tell my mother that I wished that was us. I wanted some great deity to turn us into wild animals, pluck us from this world that treated us so poorly, and give us to the sky.”

“Did they end up happy?”

“Hm?”

When you turn your head to Kita, he’s still looking up at the stars. “Callisto and Arcas, were they happy?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “But no one could hurt or leave them behind.”

His eyes flicker over to you, head still tilted to the sky. “Did your mother just leave you here?”

“Not purposely. She’s probably waiting for me inside of that constellation of burning stars.”

Kita turns to give you his full attention, mouth slightly open from the implication of your words. “She… passed?”

You nod. “She got sick. The night she sent me away was the last time I saw her.”

With a heavy exhale, you tell Kita the last thing kept closely hidden in your life.

_When Kuroo took you to the house, it was covered in a layer of dust with doors that whined eerily when opened. There was a thrumming energy in its bones—common in a house that held or once held magical properties. It felt like the walls themselves were alive as you dragged your fingertips across their texture._

_“Is this place familiar to you, Kuroo?”_

_“Your mother grew up here.”_

_Your head whipped in his direction. “Really?”_

_“This is where Kenma and I met her. A lot of yōkai and spirits used to live around here before more and more humans built their houses.” He disappeared into a room and you could faintly hear the clanging of glass before he came out with mason jars in hand. “You’re going to want to put a seal around the house.”_

_He laid out the jars on the wooden table in front of you and went to the kitchen for old, forgotten spices. “This is all I would need,” you called._

_“You sure?”_

_“I can protect the house and wear a protection jar that dampens my presence. I’ll be able to go about my time here hardly being noticed.”_

_Kuroo came back and smiled fondly. “You’ve come quite a long way, little witch.”_

_You rolled your eyes. “I haven’t been a kid in years, Kuroo.”_

_“I can’t stay with you.” His statement wasn’t surprising. Kuroo had been with your mom and his best friend for many years. Although he cared about you, he had to take care of her, too. “Are you going to be alright?”_

_“I think I can handle myself until you all come back to get me.”_

_Kuroo's eyes softened, and he patted your head like an older brother would their sibling. “We’ll come around as soon as we’re able. Clean up the house while you’re at it, ok? This old thing has seen much better days.”_

_And you did. You dusted and swept the surfaces; got rid of the decades old cobwebs and bought food and a comfortable bed for the experience to be more liveable. It was easy at first; going about things like normal. Encountering the harmless yōkai that lived in the surrounding areas. Traversing the forest during the day and stumbling upon the tsuchigumo that let you live simply because you led it to a large animal for food. The other spirits of the forest were quiet. The little kodama would come out to play every so often, pulling themselves out of their tree hosts to waddle up and circle around your legs. Floating furaribi by the riverbank, with its body of a bird and head like an odd dog, encircled in their own flames like oversized fireflies._

_For a while, the upkeep of the house and the visits to and from the yōkai kept you preoccupied, but then the days turned to weeks, and you became anxious. There had been phone calls, messages, and letters sent, but they all spoke about how the townspeople were still suspicious and that it was too dangerous to have any physical contact._

_Back and forth, Kenma and Kuroo came to check on you, but they never stayed more than a few hours. You could tell that there was something weighing heavily on their minds._

_A single phone call from your mother shed light on the situation._

_“Sweetheart, I’m sick.” It’s all she said. No explanation as to what the sickness was or what they could do to fix it._

_“I’ll come back. I-I can take care of--,”_

_“No,” she coughed. “It’s too dangerous. Besides, I have my two protectors here.” There was a loud purr over the phone. “Don’t worry. I’ll get better and bring you back to me as soon as I can.”_

_In the days during your mother’s sickness, she had shipped boxes to the house. All of them contained her old books, grimoires and tales of the past; her many jars of dehydrated ingredients and pressed flower petals brought forward memories of pestle and mortar made spells. Spices upon spices of things she hadn’t shown you before, but had labeled recently with new cardboard tags. When the last box came with her jewelry wrapped tightly inside—items she had once draped over your 8-year-old neck and let dangle on tiny fingers and whispered in your ear about how they’d be yours one day—you called home._

_“Y/n,” Kenma answered, and he sounded despondent. “How are you doing?”_

_Dismissing his greeting, you got straight to the point. “Kenma, where is my mother?”_

_“She’s lying down.”_

_“Let me speak to her.”_

_He sighed. “I don’t think that’s a good--,”_

_You slammed your hand down on the table loud enough for him to hear through the receiver. “Let me_ _**speak** _ _to my mother, Kenma!”_

_There was a shuffle and then the sweet sound of her voice, although weakened, still held its comforting tone._

_“Are you giving Kenma a hard time, y/n?”_

_“He wouldn’t let me speak to you. Is there something wrong? Has your condition worsened?”_

_She crooned. “The body comes and goes, you know, my dear.”_

_The chair you collapsed in creaked in protest; carrying what felt like the weight of your worries too. With your head resting on your hand and your eyes squeezed shut, you pleaded with her to be serious for one moment._

_“Yes. My condition has taken a turn for the worst. I’ve exhausted my body way past its limits, I’m afraid.”_

_“How long?” You whimpered._

_“Soon.”_

_“Mom, what is ‘soon’? Can I come see you?”_

_“No need,” she cleared her throat. “I’ve already called upon a Shikigami to help me before I’ve withered away to nothing.”_

_Words stuck in your throat like an insect caught in amber, and you cannot swallow around the lump of pain. “Let me see you,” you croak desperately, even though she won’t listen. “Before you go,_ _**please** _ _, don’t leave me without saying goodbye.”_

_“My sweet, powerful girl. You know if I let you see me you would do everything in your power to stop me from leaving.”_

_It’s true. You would. Even if it was against her last wishes, even if it was selfish to force your mother into staying in a body that no longer healthily housed the sturdy soul inside of it. You would do what you could to not be left alone in a world that only saw you as a stain on its beauty._

_“I love you,” the sob that fell from you was wretched and broken, but not one you could hold back. “Thank you for taking care of me.”_

_“Remember, close your eyes and imagine me whenever you’re feeling lost or lonely.”_

_“But you won’t be able to come get me.”_

_“Not physically, but I have my ways.” Her chuckle sounded rough in her throat and you latched onto its sound. “I love you, my little witch.”_

_Two hours after the phone call, your body grew stiff and your stomach swooped as the smell of incense wafted through the house. And so you closed your eyes and imagined her. You imagined all the ways she showered you with love and light, and helped you learn her craft. She protected you from the outsiders and the humans filled with malice, and tried to teach you empathy for all beings. Your mother, the one that took care of everything, had finally found her peace._

_The tiny protection jar around your neck, the one that hid you from the rest of the world, weighed unneeded around your neck. For the first time since making it, you took it off and imagined the material cracking while the spell leaked out of its splintered walls._

_It rained that night; ‘the heaviest it had been in years,’ said the news. And all you could think about was how maybe the stars were just as sad as you._

There is a pregnant silence between the two of you after the story ends and the night continues to play its natural songs. Without the looming fog, crickets chirp and frogs croak unlike the time you had met Kita the first time. The owls are the loudest; hooting their claim to territory in the trees high above. The night is so peaceful that you feel as if you could almost lose yourself in its tranquility.

And when the fifth minute of silence has passed, you decide that now is the time to call curtains on the night. “It’s alright, you know.”

“What is?”

“You don’t have to keep speaking to someone like me.” Mug of tea forgotten, your knees are situated against your chest as your left temple rests on them, trying to smile cheerfully. “You all are celestial creatures, beautiful beings with wonderful purpose to deliver the message of the deity Inari and guard against evil.”

He’s perplexed; face scrunched up as he’s trying to process what you’ve said. “I’m not understanding.”

You had wanted to rip this off like a bandaid, short and slightly stinging, but not everlasting. “I’m not _good_ , Shinsuke.” Kita sits up straighter, blanket falling off of his shoulders and yours. It’s the first time you’ve addressed him by his given name. “I got pleasure from killing another, I attack humans, and I have this shadow-like version of myself that is waiting for me to misstep again. I’m dirtying your and Inari-sama’s honor just by associating myself with you and the others.”

With those words said, you stand to brush dirt off your legs and backside absently before turning around to walk inside the house. This is abrupt and not a foreseeable event to your companion, but it has to be done.

“Are ya saying we can’t be friends anymore?”

The voice isn’t Kita’s, it’s Atsumu, and it sends gooseflesh pebbling along your arms. You don’t know when or how he got here so quickly without you feeling it somehow, but that didn’t matter. The intensity of his voice did, though.

You look back at him over your shoulder and try to be as nonchalant as possible. “I never could bring myself to insult you like your brother does, Miya.”

It’s the use of his last name that jolts him. The look on his face almost cries out the word _‘betrayal’_ in bright blue neon letters.

_Good_ , you think. _Be upset with me_.

There’s a thick fog manifesting behind him, and it’s then that you notice that a hush has once again fallen over the nocturnal animals. If you stood by any longer, the rest of them would appear to gain intel on the situation and fight this unsuspecting goodbye tooth and nail. There’s distress in the air now; clouds rolling in to dampen the light of the moon and stars. A once peaceful night has shifted to something heavy-hearted.

“I’m sorry for keeping secrets from all of you, but I think it’s time we end things here.” You look at both of them, facial expressions settling back into the distant and detached facade you held so expertly before meeting them. “Tell the others that Y/n’s bed-and-breakfast is closed for good, ok?”

You open your front door, refusing to look back, and close it behind you with finality.

Atsumu yells from the porch. “Don’t do this, ya damn witch!”

Other voices begin to surface, and you can hear them through the door.

“The hell’s gotten into you, ‘tsumu? Why’re you yelling?” It’s easy to identify Osamu’s voice.

Kita speaks next. “Atsumu, stop. We can’t force her to let us in.”

“Shinsuke, why’s he upset?” Akagi sounds concerned.

“We felt a shift in the atmosphere, Kita. We wouldn’t have left the shrine otherwise. What’s going on?” You can almost hear the frown in Aran’s voice.

“Is something wrong with Y/n?” Suna.

“Y/n!” Atsumu shouts, and you’re sure the neighbors will complain about feral foxes screeching at the peculiar woman’s door. “If you do this, yer just like the rest of ‘em! Kickin’ us aside because it’s inconvenient for you—You’re pathetic trash!”

You peek out the window at them, they’re all standing there staring wide eyed at Atsumu with his chest heaving. Ōmimi shocks you when he wraps his fist in the twin’s shirt and yanks him forward, muttering something menacingly through sharply gritted teeth that you can’t hear or lip read.

Kita is next to interfere, pushing the two apart. “Enough,” you hear faintly. “Remember what we are. We can’t bring shame to Inari-sama. Let’s head back to the shrine, we’re not wanted here right now.”

A few of them linger, staring at the front of the house before following Kita back into the heavy mist. Ginjima looks and catches you peeking through the window. He lifts his hand in a small farewell as he leaves. Suna sees too, but his expression remains blank even when you press your hand against the glass. You want to apologize. You want to tell them that this is for the best. You want to explain to all of them that you would rather be lonely for the rest of your days than ever ruin the honor they have built for themselves.

In your mind, you are dirty. _Pathetic trash._ And that isn’t something that should tarnish the respectfully painted image of an Inari fox's white fur.

* * *

The Kitsune stopped coming around like you requested, and the offerings left outside by the neighborhood were eaten by tinier, less powerful yōkai. You let them be. Most came around for the free food and then promptly left once they had their fill, but other nights when everyone slept, goblins and demon yōkai creeped out of the darkness to slither into unprotected homes, or to feast on unsuspecting humans. Without the constant presence of the Kitsune, the yōkai of the forest—good and evil—came out to wander around.

At midnight, when the air grew crisp with the season and the wind swayed the trees from side to side, you ventured off into the forest and found your way back to the river you hadn’t been to in so long.

You can tell that you’re getting close when the illumination of the furaribi is visible through the limbs and leaves. Careful steps, sure not to cause too much noise on the forest floor, pressed you nearer, but you are caught off guard by something rubbing against your leg.

The first thing that comes to mind are the tree spirits that used to circle around you. Looking down, there is nothing. A few more steps and the river is finally coming into view and you feel that same sensation, soft like fur, brush against your ankles. The way it is targeting your legs as you walk is mischievous, as if they are trying to make you fall flat on your face.

Getting to the river proved to be more of a challenge with this shadow creature entangling itself in your legs. Even when it nips slightly at your Achilles heel and you hiss out in protest.

“If you want to say something to me, then stop your tricks and come out. I’m not in the mood!”

Beside the fire illuminated river flow, you pull out the three Ziploc bags full of cucumbers from the backpack you carried in. If you had come here empty-handed, the Kappa would’ve revoked the friendship you built with them the first day you came. Although these weren’t the same ones from your childhood, they kept you company all the same, even scaring off a wild animal or two when you rested your eyes by a tree.

They bubble up to the surface, scaly skin and webbed hands reach out to grab the vegetable before oddly disappearing back under the water. Usually they will come up and sit with you until they have their fill and they’ve given a fish or mollusk as thanks, but something unwelcome must be keeping them away. Something they can sense in the shifting atmosphere.

“You seem to keep the same company, little witch.”

You’re crouching in front of the riverbank, eyeing the stream of water, when the faces of two men appear on its reflective surface. They are the last two faces you ever expected to see, but you suppose it explains the shadows at your feet earlier.

“What are the two of you doing here?”

Kenma and Kuroo sit themselves on either side of you. “Checking in,” Kenma grins, golden cat eyes boring into your lax expression. “We stayed away since you were doing so well.”

Kuroo lets out a deep sigh, “Then you went and tried to self-sabotage what you built here.”

“Shut up,” the sound of your voice is small and somehow, under their sharp gazes, you feel like prey. “I was supposed to be alone, anyway. That’s why you both stopped showing up, right?”

There’s a sudden stinging flick to your forehead.

“No, you idiot.” Kuroo grabs your chin, forcefully making you look at him. “We only fell back to monitor you. We couldn’t coddle you.”

“ _Coddle_ me?” Yanking your chin out of his grip, you rearrange yourself to sit properly. “How is sticking by my side and making sure I didn’t ruin everyone’s lives _coddling me_?”

“Why do you keep thinking that you’re ruining people’s lives, Y/n!?” Never in your life have you heard Kuroo yell, and it left you wide eyed and mouth agape. “When have you _ever_ ruined someone’s life?”

“You were there, remember?”

Kenma leans forward to look at you. “The guy?” You nod. “You protected your mother from being murdered. He was going to kill her, he ruined his own life by being a possessive piece of shit.”

“Listen, we aren’t trying to tell you it’s okay for you to use your powers on the shitty humans, but it isn’t like their sorry asses didn’t deserve to be rough up!”

“Sometimes I forget that if my mother hadn’t made a contract with you two, then you’d be a pretty violent duo.” With a huff, your shoulders slump forward as you recall the uncontrollable nature of your episodes. “I can’t get a grip on things when I’m angry. It’s like I go somewhere else.”

The older cat groans theatrically. “Oh, it must be _so_ hard being _so_ powerful!”

You scoff. “You’re annoying, you stupid rooster head.”

“Rooster head!?”

“Have you seen your hair? What kind of cat looks like a rooster?”

“If I wasn’t way older and cooler than you, I would fight you right here!”

Kenma sighs, tired of yours and Kuroo’s antics, and shimmies closer so he can lay his head in your lap. With eyes shut he says, “Your mother told us to let you get acclimated in your new environment.”

“Hm?”

“It was the last thing she told us to do before she let the Shikigami take her, but we were asked to watch just in case things didn’t go as she foresaw. We were excited when you let those shrine dogs get close, you looked happier. Besides, didn’t that Aran guy stop you in the middle of an episode?”

You hadn’t given yourself time to stop and think about how the days hadn’t been so dismal with them around. Osamu coming for lunch had filled the middle of the day with laughs and stories about him and Atsumu growing up in the shrine. Atsumu’s random demands to challenge you kept you on your toes and gave a thrill. Rintarou would come by to wrap himself up in his favorite blanket and watch television or listen to you read from whatever book you picked up that day. Akagi and Ōmimi would stop in just to have a talk and keep you company on trips to the grocery store, often sheepishly asking if you could stock some of their favorite snacks in your cabinets. Yūto and Riseki always peered into your windows, waiting until you would pass by them to scare you shitless before laughing in near hysterics. Kita and Aran would come and ask for a bit of refuge, a bit of rest and relaxation from their duties and the rambunctiousness of the younger foxes. Then there was Ginjima. Hitoshi coming in for a mid-afternoon nap, lying with his fur wrapped warmly around you and saving you from nightmares.

“Oh,” is all that you say once your brain finishes falling through the many instances where

they improved your life, and yet you tossed them aside, just like Atsumu said.

“You really hurt those Kitsune’s feelings, you know?”

“It’s been two weeks, Ken.” Your fingers play with the long strands of Kenma’s hair, absently folding the ends into small braids. “What do I do?”

“What you do best,” Kuroo answers, but you’re not quite sure what he means.

Kenma finishes for him. “Show them you care.”

You stare into the river, watching its steady flow as it pushes around the rocks and pebbles in its way, wondering if the Kappa like you enough to help carry the mountain of apology food you’re going to have to carry up to the shrine.


	4. "Stupid Cat!"

The atmosphere of the shrine was drearier than it had been in centuries. It replaced the usual laughter and banter that carried across the grounds with a heavy silence; the Kitsune passed by each other with stoic expressions that no longer held their mirth. It wasn’t like the little witch had been in their lives for a significant amount of time, but time held nothing to the importance of her presence.

“How’s she been, ‘tsumu?”

Osamu perches himself next to his brother on the roof of the shrine. Atsumu scales to the highest point sometimes to overlook the trees and the town. From here, he can see the house.

“Why the hell would I know?” He sneers.

“Like I don’t know you’ve been sneaking out at night in yer li’l shadow form to go check on her.”

Atsumu scoffs, pursing his lips as he looks away, embarrassed. “Shut up, ‘m just tryin’ to make sure she’s eatin’ or whatever.”

“Well, is she?” Osamu leans further than he should and Atsumu darts a hand out to stop his twin from falling. “I won’t fall.”

“Doesn’t matter, yer making me nervous.”

“And you’re avoiding talking about Y/n.”

The fox ears atop his head twitch and flatten a bit. “She’s doing just fine without us, hasn’t missed a beat.”

His disappointment is obvious, and although he wants her to be happy, it hurts that she’s able to go about her days like she hadn’t pushed them — _him_ — aside like it was nothing. He wanted to see even the slightest sign that she regretted her choice.

“I’m not so sure.” Osamu sees his brother glance at him out of the corner of his eye. “The birds have been acting odd lately. I’ve seen those Nekomata hangin’ around again, and I’m not so sure they’re here because our girl is ‘ _doing just fine_.’”

His comment stirs up around them; the wind blows sharply, as it always does when Y/n is mentioned. Something heavy settles in their stomachs, sensing unrest in the element.

* * *

Kita has only ever shown an interest in one other human; a little girl that would play by the shrine and play hide and seek with the nearby yōkai.

_Unlike all the others, she was never afraid of him, fox ears, tails, and all. When she was just a child, she would bury her face in the soft fur of his tails and often fall asleep with her arms wrapped around them while he sat by the koi pond. He enjoyed her quiet, yet bubbly energy._

_As she got older, he noticed the way her fingers danced in the air like they were attached to a marionette’s strings. She could manipulate lizard corpses and skeletal frogs to dance for her like they were alive. In the beginning, it was cute and almost amusing for her to come running through the torii with excitement thrumming through her veins, eager to show him and a few of the others her newly evolved powers._

_Growing meant developing powers to a grander scale, and she was more than talented. Shortly, her puppeteer work progressed from small animals to making deceased human bodies move. It was found out accidentally; a woman had wandered too far into the mountains on a harsh snow day. She found the woman’s chest nearly flattened, eyes bulging and broken bones sticking up out of torn, bloody flesh._

_Kita had felt her presence on the mountain and stumbled upon the girl facing the body, fingers moving like spider legs as she manipulated the mangled corpse of the woman. It looked as if the woman had been brought back from the dead, her own limbs miming the act of heaving herself out of the snow, shattered bone that creaked and liquids that squelched alongside the spatter of intestines and flayed skin. It was a heinous scene._

_“What happened?” He asked, stomach having turned itself upside down._

_“It must’ve been an Ippondatara. Those yōkai that become violent one day out of the year; most people here know not to venture out this far.” She looked back at the woman as she gently laid her fingers and palms flat to the ground, laying the woman back to rest. “Unfortunately, she must’ve run into it—or it, her.”_

_Kita turned her away from the body and had her hold his gaze until she couldn’t help but to smile at his serious expression._

_“What’s wrong, Shinsuke?”_

_“You’re oddly calm after seein’ something like that.”_

_“You Kitsune don’t leave the shrine that much, do you?” He shook his head. “Try it sometime. I’m sure you’d be shocked to know just how much blood and gore people like me see.”_

_He hadn’t taken her up on that offer._

_It wasn’t until she came to the shrine in her early adult age with a dark purple and yellow bruise stippled across her left eye and cheekbone that he became exceedingly worried. Behind her, two twin-tailed Nekomata trailed leisurely. They know these yōkai to reanimate the dead and use their power to blackmail or enslave humans. When he asked her if the Nekomata were forcing her to do anything she didn’t want, a glimmer of gaiety shone in her eyes._

_“Not in the slightest,” she had said. “They’re going to become my familiars as soon as I can control my magic well enough. They’re misunderstood, like me, and I want them around to keep me company in the new town.”_

_Those words weighed heavy on Kita’s heart, but he hadn’t exactly known why at the time. “New town?”_

_She nodded, “My family’s moving soon.” She looked back over her shoulder, out passed the torii, and down the path whence she came. “The people here don’t like me, I’m afraid.”_

_“I don’t understand.” Kita, despite his years, didn’t understand a lot about humans. “Why don’t they like you?”_

_She looked back at him with a reserved grin. “I’m not like them. I made the mistake of showing them a bit of my magic and it rewarded me with a hit to the face.”_

_“That’s not very nice.”_

_“Most people aren’t.”_

_“But you are.” The way Kita’s tails reached out to give a feather light touch to her skin made her giggle, and he thought he’d like to keep making her do that. “You’re the nicest one I’ve met.”_

_“Thank you for that, Shinsuke.”_

_She hugged him then. Arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders while his own found comfort around her back._

_“Will you come back?”_

_“If I’m ever able to, yes. If not, hopefully I can send someone I trust to come check up on you all.”_

_No more than a week later, she left town with her family and the two Nekomata. She left him and the others with soft hugs and warm goodbyes, and Kita tried to wrap his head around the thought that it could be the last time he ever saw her._

_Kita ended up figuring out why her having a familiar bothered him. He wanted to know why he and the other Kitsune weren’t good enough to keep around for company. Regardless of his duties to Inari-sama, he had wanted to remain by her side for however long she allowed. But maybe she knew that was how he thought and, being the kind of person she was, wouldn’t have ever asked for him to choose between his duties and her._

He learned a lot over the years after meeting her. He figured out how conniving and hateful humans could be to one another as he walked along the town, having to keep the newly bold demons and ghouls away from the citizens. He now knew what it was like for people to fear you for no reason. Recently, it came to his attention how much you and your mother were truly alike.

Now, he’ll be damned if he lets you walk away the same way she did.

* * *

Akagi is sitting by Ōmimi and Kita, sharing a pot of tea while he tries to think of a way to liven up the otherwise silent duo.

“Hey, Shinsuke, shouldn’t we go down into town to make sure the other yōkai haven’t been causing chaos?”

Kita blinked at him. He hadn’t been keeping track of time. “Has someone not been doing that?”

Ōmimi shakes his head. “We’ve done little outside of the shrine since that night.”

He didn’t have to elaborate which night; they knew.

“The three of us can go!” Akagi suggests before finishing his tea and standing up. He watches as the two of them stand as well and he looks around the shrine. “Should we ask Aran to come?”

Aran, having been the only one to have brief insight to Y/n’s childhood and the things she had to deal with, was even worse for wear. In some capacity, he felt mildly responsible for the current turn of events and her pushing them away.

“Good idea. Tell the others we’re leaving.”

The descent into town isn’t calming in the least. It becomes quickly obvious that their temporary vacation away has allowed a light miasma to linger around the trees and neighborhood homes. There are tiny goblins and gremlins skittering in and out, desperate to hide themselves away in the presence of celestial spirits. They know there are some yōkai that won’t come out until nightfall. They can sense their fleeting presence coming from the houses, alleyways, and dark corners of the town.

Kita makes eye contact with a Nigawari, a yōkai whose diet comprises the hatred and ill-feelings of humans. They’re large, ugly creatures; skin tinged green with sharp curved back horns, and a hairy mouth that is forced up into a bitter grin. Their presence incites arguments and disgust for those that they loiter around and feed off of it.

Akagi sees it too and takes note that it isn’t the only one of its kind waddling around the streets, unseen by the humans. “Do you think they’ve always been around here?”

Aran nods, “Y/n once said that the only reason she lets it stay around town is because of the poison in its claws. She uses it for medicinal purposes.”

“I shadowed the child that threw rocks at her,” three sets of eyes look at Ōmimi, “He had one of those creatures looming over him.”

Kita looks away from it and they continue walking further into town. “A town filled with people afraid and angry at the unknown is too good a bed for those ugly things.”

A cleansing would have to be done. In a place like this, where magic is overly prominent and yōkai infest the outskirts of the inhabited towns, they’ve let the area go on without being patrolled for too long. Kita thinks of a game plan; mentally mapping out the routes he will have to send everyone on to clean out the area and make it safer for the humans.

Atsumu won’t want to go near Y/n’s place, and Suna probably won’t either. Osamu and Ginjima are possibly the better two to be sent that way. The eldest four can cleanse the homes from the outside in undetected, in order to eradicate the ghosts and yōkai like Nando babā that hide away in storerooms or closets. Riseki and Yūto could take the alleyways—

“Why are there strangers in front of Y/n’s house?”

Akagi’s worried question snaps Kita back into focus. Two men unknown to the foxes are attending to them; they look sick. A couple are pale and emaciated, another is vomiting into provided buckets, and three more are sitting with heavily swollen stomachs, groaning in discomfort.

Kita thinks of your grandmother and how your mother used to tell him of the people that turned to her as well when they got sick. When their sicknesses couldn’t be cured by normal doctors because they didn’t know what to look for or what the symptoms meant. They would diagnose the humans with the flu, when what it truly was was a parasitic yōkai skittering around inside the infected person’s body.

“Kenma,” they heard you call from inside, “bring in the next person please!”

The shorter man with the grown out roots to blonde ends, ushers in the emaciated-looking woman. He has to move slowly because she is frail and hardly able to move forward. He knows that Y/n is about to make this poor woman vomit out every bit of sustenance she has inside of her in order for the blood disease yōkai to come out.

“We should go in,” Kita remarks, not waiting for the others to agree before walking forward. His eyes are trained on the two men. One is Kenma, so he assumes the other is Kuroo. The same two Nekomata that trailed dutifully behind your mother.

Kuroo’s eyes dart over to their new guests and he smirks. It was only a matter of time before the foxes became too curious to stay away.

“Can I help you, gentleman?” His cat eyes narrow and his smirk is sharp. Kuroo stands tall at the front door, head tilted and waiting for an excuse as to why they’re here. “We have a miniature clinic going on, if you want to see the good doctor then you’ll have to wait.”

Kenma steps out from behind Kuroo and eyes the four men. “Kuroo, leave them be, we have sick people to help Y/n with.”

“You never let me have any fun, Kenma!” He’s pouting, but still holds the aura of a cunning trickster.

“We can help.” Ōmimi steps forward. “Does she need help gathering the ingredients to treat the patients?”

“You can ask her yourselves. If she asks you to leave though, you _leave_.” Kuroo steps out of the way, but makes a point to smile broadly at Kita. “Been a long time, Kita-san.”

Kita says nothing, but he makes a noise of acknowledgement. He’s not very fond of the cats to begin with.

Once inside Aran asks, “Are they the same two Nekomata from decades ago?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t like them very much, do ya, Shinsuke?” Akagi sounds like he’s teasing Kita, but he pays no mind to it.

“I don’t dislike them, but this is the second time they’ve appeared and I don’t—,” he stops. He doesn’t want to finish his sentence.

Aran finishes it for him, anyway. “You don’t want Y/n to leave, too.”

Inside the house, Y/n has covered the floors in futons and blankets, desperately trying to make the sick comfortable. Her sleeves are rolled up, and she stands at her kitchen table, which is covered in half-empty mason jars of green pastes, dried mushroom caps, and crisp medicinal leaves. She’s working hard to muddle together cures and remedies for the people begging for help under the comfort of her blankets.

When she turns around to bring her concoction to the patients, she stops dead in her tracks when her eyes land on the four fresh faces in the house. She doesn’t say hello and neither do they. Instead, after a beat of silence she points to her workroom and says, “If you’re here to help, then I need more black cardamom seeds, poria mushroom, and the jar labeled ‘atractylodes’.”

They don’t hesitate to fulfill her commands.

* * *

After the last person leaves and the futons have been set aside to clean, you allow the foxes to stay for a rest and a cup of tea with snacks; only as thanks for their help.

Kenma is back in his cat form, his body draped over your shoulders and his head resting against your neck. Kuroo is watching from his seat at the dining table, a lazy expression on his face as if he’s waiting for something to happen. Or, he just doesn’t like a group of dogs loitering in the place he sleeps. yōkai disagreements are not on your radar at the moment.

Akagi, as comfortable with you as he usually is, allows his ears and one of his tails to be out. They’re always telling of his emotions, so he must be happy being back inside your home if the relaxed back-and-forth swaying of his tail is anything to go by. Aran is quiet, but you know he’s only listening and taking in everything you’re saying. His face communicates his content as he sips his own tea. Ōmimi hasn’t stopped looking at you with a barely noticeable tiny grin. He helped silently gather your ingredients in your workspace, but not before he rested a hand on the top of your head and muttered out an, ‘I missed you.’ Kita is the same as ever: cordial and logical. You know he cares, otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting here with you, but you miss the fond smiles he used to give. Them being here, although awkward, bubbles up a feeling akin to happiness in your belly.

Kita clears his throat, “Is this a recent development?” 

“The miasma and the sickness is.” You look down at your teacup, watching as the amber liquid ripples from your light touches around the rim. “The yōkai were normal. Smaller ones came to eat the offers left out by the town, but then at night the more malevolent ones came out. I think the heightened negative energy has brought along the miasma and the parasitic yōkai with it.”

“An elderly woman came to me in the middle of the night last week and said that she had a parasite, but it wasn’t normal.” You closed your eyes, willing the image of her back into your mind. “Her stomach was swollen; if she hadn’t been old, I would’ve assumed that she was pregnant. She said that she’d been eating nothing but cold soba, sushi, and cold vegetables. She hadn’t had a hot meal in over a week.”

“A mimimushi.” Aran supplies, wrinkling his nose to the thought of the ear worm yōkai. “Disgusting little thing.”

“Mhmm, I saw it wriggling out of her left ear before it slithered back inside.” A shiver went down your spine. “I had the ingredients necessary to remedy the infection, but I stocked up the next day just in case something like this occurred again.”

Kita set down his empty teacup on the table in front of him. “And it did, not to mention the other infectious yōkai you treated today. The humans changed their tune once they needed yer help, hm?”

You shrugged. “Only the ones that need my help. The others, however, are looking at me like I’m even more of a stain in their town.”

“It hasn’t been easy on her.” Kuroo speaks up finally, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees as he looks at you. “The people around here seem to think the influx of their misfortunes has to do with her and not the spirits. They’re too hell bent on pinning the blame onto an easy target, rather than pray to the necessary beings to rectify the imbalance.”

Aran sighs, dejectedly. “It’s no one’s fault but ours. None of us withheld our responsibilities.”

“No. I’m the cause and this is the outcome; it’s normal, really. I tell you all to stay away, you do, and the town suffers for it. I’m fine with tolerating it all.”

Kenma purrs loudly and bumps his head against your jaw. It’s an act of affection meant to comfort you, but doesn’t quite work the way you’d like it to. While you scratch his head, you whisper that you’re alright even if it feels far from the truth, and the beginnings of dissociation settles in.

“Regardless of whose fault it is, you spoiled the town.” The Kitsune look over at Kuroo, their eyebrows arching in question at his statement. “No town has a group of celestial beings doing rounds to keep the evil spirits at bay. They were lucky to have you all of these years.”

Distantly, Kenma’s meows echo in your ear and Kuroo’s words fade out as the buzzing becomes louder. The edges of your vision blurs, narrowing quickly until there’s nothing but undefined blobs around you. You know someone is approaching you, they’re probably calling out your name too, but you hear nothing as you fall back into your subconscious.

This happens more often lately; the stress stacking itself up on top of you, one after the other. It started first with the child and his rock, then the telling of your past, forcing yourself to part from your new friends, and now it was the miasma, malicious yōkai, and the ones plaguing the townspeople.

Sometimes you imagine the ground swallowing you up and taking you to a quieter place. Except the darkness that is imagined is never, ever pleasant. It’s the same isolation that finds you in your nightmares, the same darkness that houses the shadow of yourself. It paralyzes you; the image of its sharp-toothed grin is terrifying as it reaches out towards you, step by agonizing step.

The trembling starts then, you’re scared and caught in something like sleep paralysis, yet you’ve nowhere to go because you’re already awake. There is the faint feeling of a hand on your shoulder shaking you, trying to pull you out of this current state, but it isn’t enough.

Wet sludge for fingers wrap themselves snuggly around your throat. _“You’re almost there!”_ It cackles. _“You’re so close to accepting me!”_

Your eyes widen, and your mouth opens, but nothing comes out except a strangled croak. There are tears falling as cold terror settles inside of your ribcage, clutching tightly at your heart.

_“He said it—that fox twin called you pathetic trash!”_

This thing hasn’t stopped repeating Atsumu’s words. It uses them as fuel to your self-deprecation fire, and you’d be lying if you said the constant reminder of the words weren’t beginning to weigh heavily on your conscience. The worst part was that whenever it repeated the two words, it changed its voice to match Atsumu’s. Like a broken record, you heard him yell it at you each time you were surrendered to this dark room.

The stress and the disappointment make you want to accept the power the shadow has offered you, even if it meant losing yourself in the process.

Black goop coats the skin of your throat, dripping thickly across your clavicles as it chokes out the breath from your lungs. Its bright headlight eyes are blinding, and it forces you to close your own. That same familiar woozy feeling is about to overtake you. Desperate, you claw at its sticky wrists, but there is nothing solid to inflict damage to.

 _“What else do you have to lose?”_ It places its entire hand over your face and forces the viscous liquid to spread over you, encapsulating your entire head within itself. _“No one cares enough to stay with a murderer like you!”_

It isn’t that nobody cares; you thought. It’s that you didn’t think yourself worthy enough to be cared about. Every time someone cared for you, something disastrous always came after. You felt your resolve finally starting to slip. Maybe… Maybe letting it take you was the best idea. It had been trying so hard this entire time.

“Y/n.” That sounds like Kita. “What did I tell you at the shrine?”

You can barely hear him. It’s so hard to focus with everything fading and the viscous matter pulsing in your ears, and flooding your mouth.

“I said that you aren’t alone anymore,” _Oh_. “I meant it, I still do.”

You’re not alone right now.

“But you have to come back, you can’t get lost inside yer own mind.”

He’s right, you can’t. Your mother would have protected you for nothing if you let yourself slip now.

The shadow of you releases a scream; inhuman and high-pitched as it gets forcibly ripped away by an unseen force. It takes a second, but oxygen fills your lungs again as you cough and gasp harshly. You blink rapidly, finally able to focus back into the environment of your living room.

Everyone looks on edge, literally and figuratively; they’re hanging off your couch. Kuroo is at your side and Kenma is still wrapped around your shoulders, golden eyes wide and staring.

“I’m sorry for the trouble.” Laughing awkwardly as you stand. Your face feels wet and you hope it’s only from the tears. “That seems to happen a lot more lately, I’m afraid.”

Akagi’s forehead is wrinkled in concern as he stands and reaches out a hand, fingertips grazing the skin of your neck. “Y/n, there are bruises…”

“Par for the course, I’m afraid.” Kenma leaps off your shoulders as you make way to the door. “Um, I appreciate your help, but I’m fairly tired and–,”

“We’ll leave.” Omimi and Akagi follow your lead while Aran and Kita trail behind. “We have to start makin’ our rounds again, anyway.”

Aran hums, “We’re sorry that our negligence has caused you a lot of unnecessary stress, Y/n.”

“Ah! No, it’s not your fault at all, I–,”

“No, it is.” Kita leaves absolutely no room for argument with his tone. “Even if ya didn’t wanna see us anymore, that doesn’t give us the right to push our responsibilities to the wayside.”

As they walk out your front door, you call out to him once more.

“Uh, Shin?” He turns to look. “Do you still mean it? I-I mean what you said earlier.”

His natural stoicism dissolves into gentle eyes and a fond smile. “More than anything.”

You wait until they disappear like they always do. Through the foggy mist, their forms vanish like ghosts in the night. When you shut the front door, both Kuroo and Kenma are on you, hands inspecting the bruising on your neck and the fingerprint sized purpling on your cheekbones and forehead.

“That’s worse than it’s ever been, Y/n.” Kenma’s voice is harsh, and so is his expression with narrowed lips and glaring eyes. “What the hell happened?”

You shake your head. “I’m not sure why it was so bad. Usually it just taunts me when I dissociate, but this felt like one of my nightmares where it tries to suffocate me.”

“Only this time it was real.” Kuroo is turning your head left and right, brows drawing together in concern. “It knows you’re weakened right now and is using your vulnerability to its advantage.”

“What has it been saying to you?”

“Ya know, the usual: ‘no one cares about you,’ ‘He called you pathetic trash.’ Blah blah blah. It uses the pathetic trash insult often since it, um, it really bugs me.” Pushing their hands away from you, you roll your shoulders back and take a deep breath in and a steady one out. “I want to rest for a while. I’m exhausted from today.”

They nod, “Okay, me and Kenma are going to wander around outside a bit. We’ll be back before you wake up.”

With that, you wander off into the bathroom and face yourself in the mirror. The bruising around your neck is getting darker, but at least the ones on your face aren’t as stark as the rest. When you close your eyes, you see a flash of the shadow in your mind’s eye and you forcibly grip the edge of the sink.

You’re standing there miserably wondering when this waking nightmare will end, and if you’ll ever have the chance to apologize to them properly before you’re overwhelmed by the shadow completely.

* * *

The twin-tailed cats dart their way to the shrine. They can’t enter, they don’t particularly want to anyway, but they desire the attention of one particular spirit. One particular Kitsune whose words have been taken to heart and echoed through the mind of their favorite little witch.

So, like any good Nekomata, Kuroo hurls a blue fireball towards the torii, watching as it slingshots to the middle of the temple’s entrance, hits a barrier that crackles against the force, and then flames scatter into a thousand tiny embers.

“Ugh, Ken, they’re too damn old for just my fireball to work. Maybe we should send a combined one through it, just to spook them a little.”

“That ain’t the best idea, ya damn stray!”

At the very top of the torii stands Atsumu. He bunches his fists up at his sides and Kuroo’s amused by the flare of his temper.

“Got you,” the Nekomata says under his breath as he shifts into his human form.

Osamu is there, but is significantly less put off by Kuroo’s presence. He’s merely around to watch and step in if things get too out of hand. His legs are kicking back and forth atop the gate as he shoos off his brother towards the surprise visitor.

“Go on now,” he yawns. “Find out what he wants. It obviously has to do with Y/n.”

“Huh?! The hell I will! That flea-ridden thing ain’t coming within ten feet of me!”

“Flea-ridden?! I’ll have you know I clean myself every single day!”

Atsumu doesn’t have the chance to hurl another insult because Osamu is climbing to his feet and aggressively kicking his twin off the top of the torii.

“Stop yer lame ass insults, have yer discussion and let’s get this over with!”

Kuroo slaps a hand over his mouth, but can’t stop the loud snort before it’s heard. Atsumu ends up flat on his back, groaning a bit from the pain before popping back up to yell at Osamu.

“‘Samu, you jerk! That hurt!”

“Yeah, well, learn to land on yer feet. You have ‘em for a reason!”

Kuroo is still chortling behind Atsumu until he spins around and points at him. “Stop laughin’ at me and tell me why yer here throwin’ fireballs! Are you tryin’ to burn everything down?!”

“Oh, right. Your brother was right about this being about Y/n.” He composes himself, clears his throat and rolls his head around until a satisfying _pop_ is heard. “Regardless of your hurt feelings, was it really necessary to call her ‘pathetic trash’?”

Atsumu flinches under Kuroo’s eyes, watching as the cat licks over his sharp fangs. His mind settles on the thought of how much older this man is than him. Is there a possibility he could win if they fought, or would this Nekomata do him in?

“Although, _you’re_ the one wallowing in your own despair because some little witch said not to visit her anymore. _Pathetic_.”

He instantly becomes defensive. “Shut yer mouth, stupid cat! The hell do you know?!”

“More than you.” Kuroo stands his ground, smiling like the Cheshire Cat as he gracefully circles the fox. “Kenma and I helped raise her. We stayed by her mother’s side until her last breath, and we only stayed back when we saw all of you were at her side.”

Atsumu tightens his fists. He knows he’s being baited to do or say something that’ll allow Kuroo to cut him down where he stands. He can practically smell the blood lust on him.

Through clenched teeth, he asks, “What do you want me to say?”

An arm snakes its way around Atsumu’s neck; over his left shoulder while the hand settles on the right. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Osamu shift from his perch, ready to jump in if need be.

“I’m not saying Y/n’s actions were right, but I have never met a bunch of foxes so cowardly that they didn’t go after what they wanted.” Kuroo digs his fingers into the meat of his prey’s shoulder as he whispers his next sentence into the fox’s ear. “Your words are the ones haunting her nightmares now.”

He releases his hold and gives the twin a firm shove at the middle of his back; Atsumu stumbles forward before catching his footing.

There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of the older twin’s stomach after his brain processes the additional information. He’d been so _angry_ , and he felt like the only human that had provided a place to be themselves was selfishly ripping it all away. The words came out easily, not once thinking of the repercussions they might have. Not that he would have ever thought someone pushing them away would ever hang on to two words.

“She seems to think she’s a burden to others.” Kenma’s voice comes from up in a nearby tree, Atsumu snaps his head up, finding the other Nekomata staring down at him. “Force her to believe otherwise.”

“What if-,” he scrunches up his face in thought, mind racing over the possibilities of being rejected for a second time. “What if yer wrong and she wants nothing to do with us anymore?”

“We’re not wrong, but she is stubborn.” Kenma jumps down from the tree, landing steadily on his feet. “You should speak to Kita-san.”

“Why?”

“He and those other old foxes stopped by to check on the town and ended up inside the house.”

“What!?” There’s a pang of jealousy in Atsumu’s chest. “Wait, we’re all old. Who the hell’re you talking about?”

Kuroo snickers, “Kita, Ojiro, Omimi, and Akagi. The entire town is rampant with nasty yōkai and I guess its protectors finally decided to take a look after their absence.”

The passive aggressive comment made Atsumu leer at him.

“Whatever. I’ll talk to them.” He immediately turns around to head back to the shrine.

“You’re welcome!” Kuroo calls after him.

“Stupid cat!”

Osamu jumps down from the torii and bumps his shoulder into his brother’s. “Did ya see how that cat landed on its feet? Maybe you should ask for some lessons.”

The twins shove and tug at one another’s hair and clothes the entire way to the shrine, bickering back and forth like children.


	5. "I am you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last part for the main story. Future TFW uploads will focus on the individual relationships between reader and select Kitsune.  
> Hint: they stop being platonic :)

At 8 o’clock in the morning there is a gentle knock at your front door. The weather has gotten cooler and the leaves have decorated the roads and sidewalks with rust, wood, and tangerine colored leaves. You fell asleep in a pull-over hoodie, cozy sweatpants, and fuzzy socks, not bothering to turn on the heat in the house if you could keep warm yourself. You’re still exhausted from the day before and want nothing more than to ignore the knocking, but the sound comes again while you’re stretching out your limbs in bed.

Padding slowly to the door, the whining creaks of the wooden floorboards cause you to wince a bit. Their sound is not quite the melodious ‘good morning’ you’d like to hear.

“I’m coming,” you say groggily to the continual knocking. “I’m coming.”

When you open the door, Ginjima is standing there sheepishly and you have to blink a few times to make sure you’re not hallucinating.

“Gin? Are you alright?”

“I know you said that we should stay away, but I heard from Akagi that he was here and I missed you. Even though I just slept most of the time, listening to you work was really soothing and the best part of my days.”

You go to comment, but he doesn’t stop speaking. There is a fiery disposition that peeks out as the topic shifts over to Atsumu.

“I set one of Atsumu’s tails on fire after we got back to the shrine. Both me and Ōmimi had to be calmed down after that. We saw red every time he entered a room for an entire week. And Ojiro wants me to help keep him and Osamu in line? I can’t think straight after what he said to you!”

Holding up your hands, you try to stop him after hearing about what he did. “Wait, you-you set his tail on _fire_?”

“Yeah. What he said to ya was uncalled for! It’s what he deserved.”

“Oh, god. Hitoshi, you could’ve gotten in trouble! Or seriously injured Atsumu!”

Ginjima shrugs. “He’s fine. Everyone’s fine,” he stops, mouth open, thinking over what he just said. “Actually, we all just really miss ya and I’m comfortable enough to admit it.”

You don’t know how to respond, so you step aside to let him in. You don’t know how to respond, so you step aside to let him in. “Ok, come in. Are you hungry?”

He shakes his head, closing the door behind him.

“I wanna sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“Yeah.”

In a blink of an eye, he shifts. Now, at your feet is the all too familiar form of the fox you’re so used to seeing. But instead of skittering off into your workroom to lie in the bundle of blankets—you couldn’t bring yourself to put them away—he disappears upstairs.

You follow, figuring he’s made his way to your room, and sure enough he’s sat up on the opposite side of where you normally sleep.

With hands on your hips you ask, “And how did you know I don’t sleep on that side of the bed?”

Hitoshi gives a high-pitched yip, before bumping the covers with his head, inviting you to join him under them. You oblige, still over-tired yourself, and snuggle underneath the warmth recently left. He snuggles up to you, head resting on your neck, and he grumbles happily when your fingers smooth over his fur.

This was okay. Once in a while allowing yourself a moment of reprieve was nice. Kenma and Kuroo would be proud that you didn’t turn him down.

Still, the voice in your head was becoming increasingly louder. You shut your eyes tightly, fingers buried in Ginjima’s fur, and willed yourself back to a calm sleep.

* * *

Four days later you found a lull in the amount of people coming to you for help with their sicknesses, but an odd increase in the severity. Thinking it could cause something more serious or lead to it, you thought it best to discuss the cases with the Kitsune. Thus, setting your plan of apologizing into action.

You’d spent half of the day between patients cooking the foods that have slowly become their favorites. Osamu, however, ate whatever the hell you put in front of him. It was exciting and nerve-racking all the same. While things cooked in the oven, you spent an hour or so practicing your apology in the bathroom mirror and explaining to them you care and appreciate them. It was all coming together rather nicely.

Instead of asking any yōkai to help carry the bundles of food, you fit everything in three large bags to trek up to the shrine. The weather was pleasant, so there would be little to no sweating on the journey there. The birds were chirping with the rustling of the leaves in the wind, calming you.

At the torii, you paid your respects and entered properly. An overwhelming gust of nostalgia hits you when the bustling and chitter-chatter of the smaller yōkai floods your ears. The bags are light at your sides and there’s a smile on your face as you head into the offering hall for a quick prayer.

As you set out the bento boxes, the extra containers filled with more food, and the offerings for Inari-sama, you hear a pair of voices outside of the hall.

“If you keep pacing like that, I’m going to set your other tails on fire.” Suna. There’s a sigh, “It’s annoying.”

“Then go somewhere else!”

Ah, that was Atsumu. A sudden pang ripples in your chest. You peek out and see both of them near the main hall; Suna is lounging up on a tree limb while Atsumu is walking back and forth underneath him.

“If you’re so worried after what Kita and that twin-tailed cat told you, then go see her. No one’s stopping you.”

“Yer one to talk, you’ve been loitering by the entrance of the shrine just itching for her to turn up here.”

There’s a distinct scoff from Suna, his tails leisurely flicking left and right, back and forth. “It’s your fault she hasn’t come by even for a prayer.”

The pacing comes to a stop. Atsumu looks up at him in the tree and doesn’t say a single word. There’s a pounding in your head.

“You called her pathetic trash and then pouted like a child. You even harassed her cat friends.”

“Come down here and say that to my face, Suna.” Atsumu speaks with a snarl and you almost step out to stop them from arguing, but your body cannot move and the image of the teenager you forcibly froze in place flashes through your mind.

The shadow’s voice sings its insults at you. “ _You cause chaos everywhere you go. You shouldn’t be here. You see what the mere topic of you does to them?”_

“Stop,” you whisper.

_“They’ve been friends for a whole century and you’ve created a rift between them.”_

The incessant dark chuckling in your head is driving you mad. You squeeze your eyes shut, pressing the heels of your palms into your temples, and mutter a soft plea. There was a phantom feeling of a cold wet substance enveloping your body in a disgusting embrace.

_“You shouldn’t be here, Y/n. You’ll only make their lives worse, just like you thought before. You only need me.”_

“But I—,”

 _“Hush,”_ you gasp for breath, feeling the viscous substance cut off your airway. _“Don’t let them hear you. It’ll only upset them further.”_

A rumble sounds throughout the sky and the Kitsune look up.

“I’ll leave,” you gurgle. “I’ll leave!”

You stumble out of the offering hall, beads of sweat blooming up on your forehead and upper lip while you still try desperately to get a good hold on your breathing. So that Atsumu and Suna don’t hear you, you try to conjure up the image of a crack of lightning.

There are hot tears streaming down your face, the sheer panic of not having enough air in your lungs and the exertion of fighting off the version of yourself trying to take over, sends you spirally.

Lightning hits, startling the Kitsune, and the ear-splitting sound of it alongside the thunder allows the perfect opportunity for you to move down the hills and steps unseen. At one point, you slip, twisting your ankle in the mad dash home. Thankfully, there’s nearby grass that you’re able to hobble to before a wave of nausea falls over you. The pain is excruciating and you remember your mother telling you that a sprain hurts worse than a break; torn ligaments making the joint unstable.

The tears are streaming like a river now and the thunder has brought rain; a mirror image of your own emotions. Everything has failed. The attempt you made to reconcile with the Kitsune was half-baked at best. Losing your composure after simply hearing Atsumu and Suna discuss you left you incapable of moving forward was, for lack of a better word, pathetic. The imposter in your mind reprimanding you for even trying. It got a hold on your vulnerabilities once again. It won.

It’s winning.

It’s almost taken you over.

Fists clutch at the grassroots and soil beneath your hands. Fingers dig down deep, dirtying you as you gargle out a loud scream, feeling as if the shadow is twisting and tearing at the fragile strings of your sanity. The creature’s laughter is still so loud that it nearly drowns out the pounding of the rain.

“Get out!” Your voice sounds strained. “Leave me alone!”

Throat raw, you heave air in and out of your brutalized lungs and achingly crawl to a nearby tree. Fingernails scratch at wet bark, trying to pull yourself up onto your one good foot. Wet grass slipping beneath your shoe as the rain thrashes against your back.

“Please, leave me be. I just—I want to be left alone. I don’t want this anymore!”

 _“Then let me take over.”_ Oddly, its voice is relaxed now, though the sound still drowns out the howling of the wind and rain. You know it’s trying to convince you with faux sincerity. It just wants your vessel as its own. _“You won’t have to endure this lonely existence anymore. You can sleep.”_

Giving up on standing, you flip over harshly and let your back hit against the trunk. You slide back down; scratching up your clothed skin until you’re sat onto the ground.

“No,” you close your eyes. “Not yet. Maybe when I’ve reached the end of my rope; when I have nothing left.”

“What do you have left?”

Images of the Kitsune glimmer across the back of your eyelids. Ōmimi’s rare but sweet smile. Ginjima’s cuddles and soft fur. The twin’s childish arguing. Kita and Aran having tea at your dining table. Akagi looking through your workroom ingredients. Rin occasionally leaning on you when he’s sleepy. Yūto and Riseki peering over your shoulders when you cooked. Kenma laying in your lap, whether in cat or human form. Kuroo leaning his chin atop your head or shoulder if he was feeling tired and lazy.

“A lot,” you chuckle; coughing with the effort. “I have a lot left to care for.”

Sleep comes swiftly and against your will.

* * *

The rain has both an abrupt start and end at the shrine. They took refuge inside the main hall until it ceased, clear blue skies flooding out the grey dreariness as quickly as it came. There’s a bright rainbow that arches out and above the entire forest; a beautiful end to an odd event.

Kita’s ears flick a bit of water off as he steps back out into the open air.

“Which one of you upset Y/n?” The twins, Suna, Riseki, and Yūto stare at Kita like he’s grown two heads. “She was here. I’m sure one of you did something again.”

Suna seems to connect the dots before anyone else can, and he walks towards the offering hall.

“Where the hell’re you going?”

He keeps walking, not bothering to turn to look at Atsumu. “She must’ve heard our conversation. If she wasn’t here, then she was in the offering hall.”

The others move to follow in the short distance to the opposite hall and when they get to its entrance, they all stand there for a minute and stare at the abandoned bags of food.

“She was here.” Osamu sighs. “What did you say, ya slimy fox?”

“Nothing! I didn’t say a damn thing, Suna’s the one who mentioned what I—,” His words stutter to a halt as he processes. “That was it.” He turns to Suna. “You mentioned what I said.”

Suna blinks, trying to look as unbothered as he possibly can, but his fingers are twitching as his sides. “So what? They were your words to begin with.”

“That ain’t the point!” The older twin’s voice booms, echoing off the falls of the offering room.

Aran grabs the back of his skull and forces him to bow. “Remember where you are, Atsumu.”

He says his apology through gritted teeth and then Aran lets him go.

“Suna, the point isn’t that Atsumu said it. The name he called her has been torturing her ever since.” His eyes pin Suna on the spot, causing the fox to jolt slightly. “That _thing_ inside of her has been taking advantage of her temporary vulnerability.”

Akagi bends down and goes through the food. “There’s so much here.”

Ginjima picks up one container and opens it, unveiling inarizushi. He places it in its appropriate place, offering it to the kami in your place. He bows his head, says a quick prayer, and stands.

“I’ll go find her.”

“No,” Kita shakes his head. “Atsumu, Suna, the two of you should go. Check on her, make sure she’s alright.”

Aran steps out of the hall and looks up. “I have a bad feeling. That shadow thing might be half of the reason the rain came.”

The two foxes leave, silently heading down and through the torii, their ears and tails disappearing as they do.

“You gonna apologize?”

“ _Me_?” Suna inquires, slightly offended. “What about you?”

“Of course I am. Mine is well overdue, but I think you should say it too. I’m sure she’d really appreciate it.”

Suna looks over. “How long have you thought about apologizing?”

Atsumu scratches at his hair, tugging at the roots briefly. “As soon as I said it.”

As they get near the edge of the forest, they see a foot sticking out of the tree line. “Atsumu, is that-,”

As the foot turns into a leg, a torso, then a face, they see that it’s you and their once careful steps become rapid as they descend towards you.

“Y/n!” Atsumu yells as he gets closer.

They both fall down onto their knees, mucking up their pants as they skid in the muddied ground next to you.

“She’s ice cold.” Suna observes as soon as his fingertips touch your skin. “We have to get her warm.”

Atsumu takes your face in his hands, tilting it up as he pats your cheek. “Come on, Y/n. Wake up for me, let me know yer alright.”

Their voices tremble as they call out your name and find you unresponsive.

“Atsumu, we need to get her back to the shrine. We can easily conjure up enough foxfire there to get her and her clothes dry.” He looks down at your ankle and notices the beginning of swelling. “She’s twisted her ankle, too. We need to treat it.”

Without hesitation, Atsumu scoops you up easily in his arms and he’s never been more thankful for the strength that comes along with a celestial existence. He could hold you this close for hours without ever getting tired.

Nervousness seeps through as they hurriedly return to the shrine. Atsumu nudges your forehead with his cheek and chuckles anxiously.

“You’ve never been this quiet around me. You gotta wake up, ok? I need yer sarcasm to put me in my place. ‘Samu’s going to be real disappointed if he’s the only one grumbling at me all the time.”

When there’s still no response except for the tiny movement of your chest rising and falling as you struggle to breathe. Atsumu’s grip on you tightens.

They get to the courtyard of the shrine and see everyone sitting at the entrance of the main hall with the food laid out around them. A close reminder of the last time you brought food for everyone. Except this time you were trembling and passed out in his arms instead of clinging to his clothes.

The others turn their heads, alarm reflecting in their expressions as they take in your limp form.

“She’s not waking up!”

* * *

Kuroo and Kenma had noticed the shift in the atmosphere on the roof of your house. They saw the isolated thunderstorm that umbrella-ed the shrine and the surrounding forest of trees. You obviously caused it, but they waited until the clouds dispersed, hoping it was only you letting off some steam after both you and both you and Atsumu apologized. Yet something didn’t settle well afterward.

“Let’s go,” Kenma says, leaping off the roof and following the path you took to the shrine. “This time we’ll go in.”

Kuroo groans, but follows. He wouldn’t leave you completely high and dry after all these years. “Do you think _they_ rejected her?”

They’re quick on their feet in their cat forms, easily maneuvering through the path, zigging through the trees until they’re stopped at the torii. They shift into their human forms and take a shivering step through, not bothering to bow as they do.

“I don’t,” Kenma’s eyes are quickly taking in each part of their surroundings, opening up his senses to find you. “But I think that thing taking up space inside of her reared its head again.”

Kuroo hums and nods at a building, “The main hall. There’s an illumination of blue in there, it must be their foxfire.”

As they approach, they see you laid out in a pile of large foxes, each of them, each of them with all nine of their tails wrapping around you, trying to keep you warm. Blue foxfire dances above them, orbs of it floating and emanating a warmth strong enough to imitate a heater in deep winter. The Nekomata stand there, staring as they try to make sense of the situation.

“What are you dogs doing to her?”

A reddish fox untangles itself from the pile and approaches the two intruding cats. Shifting back to a more neutral form, Kita stands before them with a grim look on his face.

“Atsumu and Suna found her at the edge of the tree line, passed out and not responding to anything. We’re trying to warm her up.”

Kenma pushes past him and shoves aside the other foxes to get to you. They growl at him, upset by his disturbance, but he flashes his own golden cat eyes and they simmer down.

“Y/n?” Kenma holds your cheeks between his fingers, squishing and giving you a bit of a shake. “Fine, you’re not going to like the way I wake you up.”

“Ken-,” Kuroo reaches out a hand to stop him, knowing how he’s going to wake you, but before he can Kenma’s fingers are already prying your eyelids open. “Don’t she’ll panic!”

He doesn’t listen. Instead, he stares into your eyes, catlike pupils narrowing to thin slits as they flash.

It rips a sharp gasp from you and you shoot up, nearly knocking your forehead into Kenma’s teeth. You can’t catch your breath, you don’t know where you are or how you got here. Your brain isn’t working properly, adrenaline coursing through you while the pain in your ankle comes back to life. All you can see is the image of your mother’s corpse, rotten and flesh falling off bone, crawling towards you and screaming.

Osamu nudges Kenma to the side with his snout and wraps his large body and many tails around your trembling form. He flinches when your hands clench harshly into his fur, but slowly you can regulate your breathing. Burying your face into his neck, hiccuping as you calm down.

“‘m sorry,” you mutter, carefully unfurling your fingers from his fur. “Thank you, ‘samu.”

When you pull away, the others are already back in their neutral shrine forms. Tails still taking up most of the surrounding room. Worried pairs of eyes bore into your form as you carefully move around your limbs, hissing slightly at the pain in your ankle.

Kenma places a hand on it, leeching fragments of the pain as a soft apology for the scare.

“Kenma, you jerk.”

“I had to do it,” his smile is gentle and teasing. “These foxes reeked of terror and anxiety. If I didn’t wake you up quickly, they would’ve cried.”

Kuroo glances over at Atsumu. “Some sooner than others.”

“Stupid cat,” Atsumu sniffs as he shuffles closer to you once his brother moves out of the way. He presses his forehead into your temple and sighs, “‘m so sorry for what I said. You aren’t anything near what I called you.”

“Hey!” Suna stands in front of you with his arms crossed, looking slightly disappointed. “Why didn’t you stay after the storm passed?”

Atsumu remains clingy, keeping some kind of contact with you even as Osamu tries to tug him away to allow you room to breathe.

You frown. “I wasn’t exactly of sound mind, Rintarō. Next time I’ll be sure to tell the nefarious voice in my head to kindly leave me be and not use my poor self-image against me.”

Ginjima mock-whispers, “She used his full given name!”

Akagi snorts, “Maybe not try to scold her, Suna? She’ll eat you alive.”

“Akagi’s right, Rin, maybe I’ll place a curse on you and permanently bind you to the twins.”

“Just tell me you hate me, Y/n. It’ll hurt less.” He rolls his eyes before plopping down next to you, staring closely before he mumbles out his next words. “I’m sorry for bringing up Atsumu’s idiotic insult.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too.” Your eyes float over the ones staring back at you. “I’m sorry for pushing you all away after telling you what I did. I, um, I panicked. I didn’t want to have to deal with people I cared about leaving me behind again.”

You see Kenma and Kuroo shift uncomfortably at the words.

“I now know why you both did what you did, ok? Don’t feel bad. My mother wanted it for a reason.” They visibly relax. “If it’s okay with you all, I would really love it if we went back to the daily visits? I made a lot of food, too, too.” You point at the bento boxes already out and ready to be dug into. “I figured I could show you guys I care by cooking all of your favorites.”

Aran smiles brightly at you. “We care about you, too, Y/n.”

Ōmimi pats your head. “A whole bunch.”

Kita pulls you up, being mindful of your still tender ankle, and hugs you tightly. After you return it, he pulls back to look at you. The corners of his eyes are tinged red, as is the tip of his nose. You wonder if he’s been crying.

“You remember?”

You nod. “I’m not alone anymore.”

* * *

A week or more later, the town goes back to normal once the Kitsune begin their rounds again. There are still offerings made by the people, but the hardened rice and molding bread or three-day-old leftovers are no longer suitable for them. Instead, they take what the humans leave out on their doorsteps and bring them to the edges of the forest for the tinier yōkai to find. Houses are cleansed of spirits like Nando babā, whose startled scream can be heard echoing through the streets after she’s banished.

Even your own shadow seems to calm down as things settle. It is 9 p.m. and your house is filled with the sound of metal chopsticks clinking against glass and ceramic. Chairs are being pushed or slid against the wood floors, moving closer or away from one another. The television is on a random sitcom that one of them likes.

Kuroo groans. “I don’t like the atmosphere here. Feels too… _good_. It’s weird.”

“Good?” Osamu rolls his eyes. “Does everywhere else feel bad?”

“No, I mean you’re all too good of yōkai, it’s unnerving.”

You scoff. “Grow up, Kuroo!”

“Why is everyone being so _mean_ to me lately!” He whines.

“Hush, you can either finish your food or you can leave and go find small yōkai to munch on.”

There is an over-the-top gagging sound from Kuroo before he mutters, “I’ll be quiet.”

“That’s what I thought, you big baby.”

Kenma doesn’t like people, so he takes his own food upstairs to the room he used to share with Kuroo and your mother when she was younger. After that, he washes his own dishes and transforms back into his cat form so he can settle himself in the kangaroo pocket of your hoodie. You can feel him purring against your stomach every time you reach your fingers in for a gentle pet.

Everyone disperses around the bottom floor, relaxing in their own ways before a couple of them have to return to the shrine for morning duties.

“Y/n, did you wash the futons those sick people slept on?” Suna’s head is the only thing peeking out of the blanket he’s wrapped himself in. He’s standing over your place at the dining table while you drink tea with half-lidded eyes.

“Just for you, Rin.” Your words and tight-lipped grin convey your thinly veiled sarcasm.

As retaliation, Suna dips down to press a small kiss to the crown of your head before walking to the cupboard that houses the futons. “Thank you, little witch.”

Warmth washes over your face and you look down at your lap in slight embarrassment only to come face to face with a sly, smirking black cat with its head out of your pocket.

“Don’t look at me like that, Kenma.”

Glancing back up at the foxes sitting at the table with you, Kita, Aran, and Ōmimi are all looking away from you. Effectively making your face that much hotter.

Atsumu is standing and looking as if he’s ready to pounce on someone in your honor. “Suna, if you do that again, I’ll kill ya!”

“Whoa,” Akagi interjects. “No need to be so hostile, it was only an innocent peck.”

Osamu comes from the kitchen and drapes an arm over the back of your chair with a mischievous look. “Yeah, ‘tsumu. There’s nothing wrong with an innocent peck, right?”

“‘Samu, don’t you dare.” He strongly points at his brother, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a small frown.

Osamu gives a big toothy grin right before he plants a big kiss on your temple. “Mwah!”

Atsumu leaps at his brother, jumping on his back before Osamu tosses him over his shoulder and puts him in a headlock. They’re knocking over end tables and nearly breaking lamps before Ginjima and Kuroo step in to separate them.

“You idiots, don’t break any of Y/n’s things!” Gin reprimands

Kuroo agrees, “I’ll make sure you two aren’t able to come in here ever again if you act like dumb dogs!”

The scene before you, fighting cat(s) and dogs makes you burst into laughter, maybe a bit too much as you suddenly cough. Yet laughter is still stuttering out of your curved lips even as you cover your mouth.

Pulling your hand away, you see that there are specks of black littering your palm. Before anyone notices, you wipe your lips with the back of your hand and rub away the grim on your pants. No one needs to know. The shadow hasn’t made itself known since the last time you went to the shrine. No nightmares, and dissociation isn’t as strong as it was before. Things have been good.

But good things tend to dangle themselves tantalizingly in front of you right before being snatched out of your grip.

You catch eyes with Kuroo, who stares while you clear your throat of the bits of liquid black sticking in your esophagus.

“Y/n,” he calls, voice inquisitive and low. “What was that?”

“Nothing, Kuroo, don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly all eyes are on you, even Kenma jumps out of your jacket to face you. Suna has the futon in his arms and his eyes are taking in your form, trying to find whatever is out of place that Kuroo noticed first.

“You coughed.”

“Yes, your point? I’m fairly certain choking on one’s spit is possible. Tell the twins to stop being entertaining and maybe that won’t happen to me.”

You try to divert the attention away from the coughing and back onto them. But Kuroo is much more perceptive than anyone gives him credit for. He’s done this before.

“Stop deflecting.”

There’s a tickle in your throat and anxiety bubbles inside your stomach.

You shake your head. “Tetsurou, it’s nothing. Drop it.”

A few pairs of eyes widen at the use of the Nekomata’s given name. They had never heard it before and felt like things were getting increasingly more serious.

Kuroo refuses to back down. “The hell I will! I want to know what you just coughed up. You seem to forget that me and Kenma watched your mother get progressively sicker.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Kita flinch. “Y/n, what was it?”

Having had enough, you stand and try to retreat upstairs to take a bath. “We were having a good night, I’d rather continue doing so.”

Unexpectedly, Osamu is the one that stops your ascent. He holds your face in his hands and turns it left to right, up and down, looking for whatever minor change possible.

He hums, “There’s a bit of black at the corner of her mouth.”

Aran’s chair skids across the floor and you whip your head out of Osamu’s grip to look in his direction. “Y/n, why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“I am!”

“Obviously not if you aren’t telling us when you’re troubled! Have you been having nightmares again?”

“No! Not since that day at the shrine. I promise!”

Kita places a hand on Aran’s shoulder, trying to calm him down. “You should have said something, Y/n.”

His tone leaves no room for argument and you nod. “Ok, you’re right. I’m sorry. But, I’m serious that nothing like this has happened. All I did was cough and there was some black goo. I don’t feel–,”

Right as you are about to plead your case about feeling fine, your stomach lurches and your skin goes ice cold.

“Y/n?”

The pain must be clear on your face because you’re now surrounded by uneasy gazes and half-outstretched hands. You cough again, only this time your hand isn’t enough to contain the splatter of black seeping out of you. It drips between your fingers, down your hand and chin, and you look at everyone in alarm.

“Ok, now I’m concerned.”

The pain intensifies as you double over, retching up an abundant amount of the ooze. Eyesight blurring as it leaks out of your eyes too, and startlingly, you realize this occurred in your nightmares.

They are shouting around you, multiple hands gripping at different limbs as they lay you down on your side. Sound is fading in and out, as is your vision. You swear you hear two or four of your friends call out your name, desperate for you to respond.

“I can’t breathe,” you choke, the thickened substance beginning to abstract your airway. This is how it killed you so many times over before.

You close your eyes and will yourself to the deepest part of your mind where you know the shadow waits. There are doors in your head opening and closing; searching until you open one that leads to the pitch black room. You blink once and the shadow is in front of you, eyes clear and bright with an identical grin. Its hand is already secured around your throat and it has enveloped you in its slime.

 _“This is it, Y/n! Our last hurrah!”_ It’s sickeningly sweet giggle sends a shiver down your spine. _“Are you scared to be dying in front of your precious Kitsune?”_

It sounds like it’s hoping for exactly that. It wants you to perish in fear and agony surrounded by the people you care about most. A light flickers on and you make a connection: this is what it waited for. It waited until everyone was together again for it to strike one final blow to you.

 _“You, me—_ ** _I_** _will embody the vile woman they make us out to be! You’re terrified, aren’t you!?”_ It demands a response from you. It is distressed and pleading for you to be a trembling mess.

“I am not afraid,” it comes out as a wheeze, but the words are still powerful. The light flickering in your mind does not go out. There is the distant sound of familiar voices calling out to you, urging you to open your eyes. “We’re the same.”

 _“Nonsense!”_ It loosens the hand on your throat slightly.

“I am you. I am exactly everything that you’ve said I am: Despicable, lonely; I had felt abandoned.” Fingers find purchase in the thick semi-fluid matter of your shadow, a grip you could never hold before. “I’ve hurt people. I’m powerful, chaotic, and all I want is for the turbulent feelings inside of me to ease. But all of that makes me human.”

For the first time, you see the blindingly devilish smirk of the creature dim and there is the subtle but distinct sound of something cracking like glass.

“You are every piece of me I was too scared to accept, too terrified to look at head on in fear that it would swallow me whole.”

The cracks spread like wildfire. _“Stop it, stop. What are you doing!?”_

It tries to pull away from you, but you won’t allow it. Light spills through the fractures of its body, breaking at a greater speed as more pieces of its flesh fall apart like hardened clay.

“I’m not scared anymore. I have people that care about me, people that worry about my well-being. They ask about my day and spend time with me just for the company. They’re here to stay, and so am I.”

 _“You were supposed to accept me,”_ it shrieks. _“I was supposed to take control!”_

“I _am_ accepting you. We are the same being. We just won’t be as hateful as everyone assumes us to be.”

There are major holes in its form now. The illumination is overflowing from it; the rays feel as warm as sunshine.

You’re not sure, but you think the shadow is crying. _“But, the people! The humans will never fully accept us!”_

“It’ll be okay.” You place your other hand on their forearm and smile. “We aren’t alone anymore.”

Liquid sunshine spills out of your shadow’s eyes before they close, and the once cold, dark room erupts in a show of white and golden brilliance that blinds you.

* * *

When you come to, you realize that you are in your bed. There is a cat on your stomach, a silver fox tail tickling your forehead, a fluffy faced Tibetan fox with its wet nose pressed up against your neck, a rüppell’s fox situated between your legs, and two gray foxes tucked under your left arm, the others, you suppose are taking up space on the floor.

Kuroo and Kita walk in, like their own personal Y/n alarm went off in their heads. “You’re up,” says Kuroo with a bowl of water and a rag in his hands. “You were touch-and-go there in the beginning.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Kenma purrs, signaling that he knows you’re alive and well. “I kind of was, but I think I took care of everything.”

Kita smiles, “No more of the black goo?”

You shake your head, “No, but I have you all with me just in case, right?”

“Right.”

Suna exhales against your neck, tickling you. He’s back in his human form as he sits up. “You’re stuck with us.”

The twins stupidly shift back into their forms at the same time and clumsily tumble off the edges of the bed. “Son of a–,” Atsumu hisses. “Yer heavy, get off!”

Their faces pop up over the edge of the bed. “How about you stop scarin’ us half to death?”

Osamu agrees, “‘tsumu’s already a handful.”

Aran and Hitoshi smartly jump off the bed before shifting back, and Aran rolls his neck to stretch out the kinks. “We’ll stick around as long as you’ll have us.”

Ginjima smiles, “Forever’s okay, right?”

Akagi chuckles and helps you sit up in bed. Yūto and Riseki are mirroring the happiness of everyone around them.

“I think forever is a good idea.” Your fingers move through Kenma’s fur and you nod. “I’d really enjoy the company.”

“We’ll stay,” Kita says. “We’ll stay until you see your last sunset.”

* * *

A ten-minute walk north of the shrine sits a house warm and inviting to the harmless yōkai that roam the area. In the house lives a woman, much too peculiar for the normalcy of the world, and her companions; the Kitsune that possess the bodies of handsome young men are rumored to suck the spirit out of anyone that comes near. There are two Nekomata that lurk around the area, spending their time eating lost kids and animating corpses—at least, that’s what the elderly say to misbehaving children. They have all taken the lives of women and children alike; their evils know no bounds.

Despite these beasts, the woman is the most dangerous. She can bend metals and manipulate the skies. If you stare at her too long, like Medusa, she will turn you to stone where you stand, forcing you to live through your worst nightmares. She speaks to river and tree spirits, and will feed you potions to steal the soul from your body. They call her _The Fox Witch_.

Out on the porch, you wait for the owls to end their hooting, the crickets to stop their chirping, and the frogs to cease their croaking. Your eyes search the trail ahead for the fog to roll in as you patiently listen for the familiar voices of your favorite foxes to emerge. You have never felt more at ease.


	6. Atsumu's Ending

When you were younger, you asked your mother what it felt like to fall in love. For a few seconds, she gazed at you thoughtfully and said, _“Well, it’s different for everyone. It starts with a ‘hello,’ and hopefully,”_ there was a wide smile on her face, _“it never ends.”_ It was when she stopped her small task that she sighed and stated, _“Darling, with all of my flowery words, none of them will ever truly describe what it feels like to fall in love. All I can really tell you is that you will find a piece of them in everything you see.”_

The thought fascinated you. Would you think of them when you looked at a lotus root? Or the blooming bulbs of water lilies? How could you think of them when you stare at a candle’s dancing flame? Could you even find them in a jar overflowing with dried fungi?

You looked back to her with one more questions on your tongue: _“How do you know when you’ve fallen in love?”_

_“Simple,”_ she chuckled, _“when you make their bed even though you hate making your own.”_

She made things seem so uncomplicated, but you soon found that a feeling that strong could be trickier than you had initially assumed. Although, you never forgot the things your mother told you, so each time you saw a familiar face in a mundane errand or a memory rippled across your mind, you wrote it down to pick apart at a later time.

  * One: Your eyes follow him around a room.



Talking to others should have distracted you from his presence, but it was the opposite. No matter how often you occupied yourself with menial tasks or discussed events and stories with the other Kitsune, somehow your eyes flickered back over to him. Each time, you would watch the way his mouth formed around words and how his eyebrows moved along animatedly with each emotion that crossed his features.

  * Two: Grass reminded you of him.



Picking weeds in your front yard, no matter the sweltering summer heat or crisp autumn breeze, you felt his phantom presence behind you, helping to clear your garden of weeds. Sometimes your neighbors would even pass by whispered—as they do—wondering why you were crouched down in your yard, staring at the greenery.

  * Three: You think of him at the supermarket.



A trip to the store used to be made in order to stock up on ingredients you were low on. Feeding a band of foxes was much more daunting than initially expected, after all, they don’t exactly desire food much. But they all seemed to enjoy your food, which brought a smile to your face. That being said, you bought more and more fatty tuna for a specific fox’s taste buds.

  * Four: His absence is glaringly obvious.



He fills up the empty silence that you didn’t even know needed to be filled. What more company could you have asked for with eight foxes clambering about your property, or you invading their space in the shrine? Your life and heart were bubbling over with an abundance of blissful happiness, but it’s when he briefly visits you by himself and then leaves that your soul grows arms; reaching back out to him in desperation, asking him to stay.

  * Five: He makes your bed.



What does it mean when you roll out of bed half asleep, bed head and all to your favorite sarcastic fox, but you aren’t upset at all? And what about when he sees how tired you are and tells you to curl up on the couch so he can make you breakfast? Not only that, but what if the eggs are a little burnt, the miso soup is the tiniest bit too salty, and the rice isn’t all the way done, but you eat it all without a single complaint?

What does it mean when you trudge back upstairs to change out of your pajamas, only to hear your mother’s voice echo through your head when you see he has made your bed?

* * *

Summer brings days, weeks, and months of rain; thickening the air so heavy that it could practically be cut through. It feels as if there is moisture touching your skin while you walk through the towering trees. 

The kappa are waiting for you by the river, beaks open and eyes slightly narrowed as if trying to imitate the facial movements of a smile.

“Hungry?” You pull out the few cucumbers you brought and offer them to the three kappa blinking at you expectantly.

“Very!”

They grab at them, munching on the vegetable immediately. They sit on the edge of the river, webbed feet kicking up the water when one asks, “When are you going to bring us warmer food?”

You blink, “Excuse me?”

Another Kappa bops that one on the head. “She’s a good witch! She will not bring us human entrails.”

Wrinkling your nose, you looked away. “Unless someone… _unsavory_ dies, then I won’t be bringing you any human entrails _or_ children.”

“Even if we beg?”

“Especially if you beg.”

One Kappa swallows the cucumber whole and splashes messily back into the rushing river, although it does not move the yokai in the slightest. “She’s probably afraid that the fox will stop liking her!”

Your eyes narrow. “Which fox are you talking about?”

The yokai floats on its back, hands tucked behind his head with a satisfied look on its face. “The one with the golden yellow hair that shares his face.”

“Golden—Oh my god, _Atsumu_!?” Your laughter does nothing to hide the rush of embarrassment you feel. “I don’t like Atsumu, what gave you that impression?”

They all snicker, and it causes a startling heat to warm your cheeks and chest. It is easy to see—and probably has been for a while now—that _not_ liking Miya Atsumu was a complete lie. 

“You don’t like me, Y/n?”

You immediately stiffen. The voice is coming from behind; Atsumu is surely standing above you with a devilish little smirk on his face, and it is taking everything in you to turn around. When you do, he is there, arms crossed and eyes as sharp as the upturn of his lip.

“Someone who gives me trouble day-to-day? I much prefer your brother.” Well played.

When you turn back to the river, the kappa have conveniently disappeared. _Traitors_.

Atsumu sits down beside you with a pout. “What’s he got that I don’t?”

“Manners,” you snort.

Atsumu’s eyelids droop and the smirk is back. He drags a knuckle down the side of your neck. He leans into your personal space and teases, “I didn’t know I needed manners to make you nervous.”

Your skin feels like it is erupting in goosebumps and an impromptu wind kicks up that’s harsh enough to spin the leaves off of the forest floor, right into Atsumu’s face.

He sputters, batting away the onslaught of leaves hurtling themselves at him.

“Y/n?!”

You stand, ground crunching beneath your feet as you turn to escape. “I’m leaving. I have a lot of things to tend to!”

A hand wraps around your wrist, spinning you back to face the fox right before he backs you up against a tree. His face is inches away from yours. Normally, this proximity would do nothing to your heart or your body temperature, but lately things have become drastically different. You find it difficult to even look him in the eye.

“Why do ya keep avoiding me, hm?” Atsumu leans into your space the tiniest bit more. “I’ve been coming by yer house in the mornings to see ya, but lately you’ve been leaving earlier and earlier.”

“I told you, I have _things_ to tend to!” You huff, “And why are you getting so bold?”

You’re incredibly flustered and don’t have a single clue where the suave confidence was coming from.

Well, maybe there was a slight clue.

_Atsumu had found you fast asleep, resting against a tree trunk. The air was slightly cool, so it was no surprise to find you spending time beneath the treetops between the town and the shrine. But it was a surprise that you had let your guard down and had fallen asleep. It made him remember the time a few months prior when he and Suna found you unconscious. It stirred up something unkind in his stomach._

_He approached you and tried to carefully shake you awake. “Y/n? What’cha doing sleeping here?”_

_“Mm,” you blinked at him slowly and grinned. “Hi, ‘tsumu.”_

_He chuckled. “You’re all tuckered out, huh?”_

_“‘M sleepy.”_

_“You’ve been doin’ so well taking care of everyone. Even though most of ‘em don’t even deserve yer kindness,” he grumbled._

_Instead of forcing yourself to wake up to speak to him clearly, you reached your hands out and tried to pull him down with you. “Nap with me.”_

_Pink tinted his cheeks, and his blood rushed in his ears. “O-ok.”_

_Atsumu sat next to you, hip to hip, but made a quick decision to pull you into his lap with your legs and body curled into his chest. He held you close, made sure his tails wrapped loosely around the two of you for a bit of extra warmth, and he pressed a kiss between your eyebrows._

_With your head on his shoulder, you hummed, “love you.”_

_His hands tightened around you, but he didn’t move or say a word. He was much too worried to ruin the peace and the softness of the moment._

_After you woke up, the realization of what you said hit you as soon as your eyes took in his sleeping form. The setting sun’s rays peeked through the tree branches, illuminating the planes of his face in a golden hue that matched his hair and fur._

_“You gonna kiss me, li’l witch?” He peered over at you with a hint of a bashful smile on his lips._

_You squished his cheeks together harshly and stood up. “In your dreams, Miya!”_

_“Yeah, probably.”_

Atsumu is tilting your chin up to him now, eyes more serious than you have ever seen them. “Are ya mad at me?”

“Atsumu…”

“No, come on, tell me what I did.” When you refuse to answer his ears fall along with his shoulders and he slumps over. His arms wrap around your back and he rests his chin on your shoulder. “I’m sorry for whatever it was. Did I tease you too much? Did I say something mean again?”

The older twin has gotten increasingly more cuddly as the weeks went by. You’re used to him standing behind you while you work in the kitchen, arms loose at your waist as he leans into your back. Or as you watch television and he lays his head in your lap, grabbing your hand and resting it on top of his head so you’ll give him head scratches.

Osamu will sometimes call him out for scenting you; rubbing his face into your neck, erupting goosebumps over your skin, or latching himself onto you for hours on end when he isn’t needed at the shrine.

Tiny things like that piled on top of the feelings you already had and with his behavior, you felt he had some too. He was always there, literally or figuratively, attached at your hip, and helping you around the house or with your curing remedies with the townspeople. Other times, his bickering with Ginjima makes you laugh, because he can’t stand when he finds the fox asleep on top of you. More than once, he has purposely shifted back into his human form while still draped over you to piss off Atsumu even further. Hitoshi gets a thrill out of how red he gets and how his eyebrows turn into a bushy ‘v’.

A sigh fell out of you at his question. Atsumu hasn’t been mean to you in a long time. He’s been treating you kindly. “No, I’m sorry, Atsumu. It’s just me being overly conscious.”

His hands move to your biceps, giving them a light squeeze. He lifts his head, face now closer than it was earlier. “Of me?”

You purse your lips and mumble, “Maybe.”

“Because of what you said when we were napping?”

“Wait,” you bring your hands up to press back at his shoulders and he steps back. “You heard me?”

Atsumu tilts his head. The confusion is obvious in his expression. “Yeah, I thought ya knew that?”

You didn’t know. Of course you didn’t, otherwise there would have been some kind of answer from him, right? He wouldn’t have just let you go that day—which was a whole week ago—and not mention it… would he?

“I thought you had _at least_ figured out that I have feelings for you.” The grimace on your face grew deeper. “If you heard what I said, then why did you never mention it?”

He merely scratches the back of his head and awkwardly shrugs his shoulders. “I didn’t think anything needed to be said.”

You couldn’t believe the situation. _He didn’t think anything needed to be said?_ Of course you were heavy with exhaustion and Atsumu was a warm body, but you weren’t lying. An ‘I love you’ wasn’t something that was so easily said by you. He made you feel comfortable, safe, and it was only natural that your genuine feelings slipped out at the one moment your guard had completely fallen.

“You didn’t _think_ , obviously!”

His brow furrows, “Hey, I did! You were half-asleep. I thought you were dreaming about food or somethin’!”

“Food?! Atsumu, I—,” he makes you want to tear out your hair. “I love you! I’m saying it loud and clear for you to hear, ok?!”

His eyes are wide, and his mouth is agape. He’s looking anywhere but at you and his avoidance makes you queasy. You’re scared.

“I love your stupid laugh, your overwhelming sense of confidence, how you act like you don’t care what people think of you even though you really do.”

“I _don’t_ care,” he loudly interjects.

“Shut up, yes you do. I love how we bicker, but most of all I love how I can just _sit_ next to you and feel at ease because your presence fills up all of my empty spaces. I love when you come over to check on me after I spent all night brewing new concoctions for the people in town. Or when you help pull the weeds in my yard, especially after the first time. And you make my bed! I am in love with you, you stupid, _stupid_ fox.” You’re breathing heavily, having regurgitated your feelings in a less than flowery way, you feel lighter than before. But there is still hurt laced in your features because Atsumu, despite your confession, is still silent. “What I don’t love is how you are _such_ a loudmouth, but when I need you to say _something_ , I’m met with silence.”

Atsumu’s hands tighten at his side and he looks down at the forest floor. “I didn’t know ya meant it. I was just teasing you here and there to get yer attention.”

“ _Just_ teasing me? Everything you’ve been doing—the flirtations, the touches, pretending like you’re going to kiss me—was only to tease me?” His head snaps up to you after hearing the indignation in your voice. His eyes are wide once again and he’s stuttering, but words won’t work properly for him. “It’s fine, Atsumu. Don’t worry about it.”

You’re leaving. Picking up the bag used to hold the cucumbers that rest by the lake, and that’s when the faces of the kappa emerge partially above the water and watch your disconsolate form leave. 

Atsumu calls out to you, but anything meaningful is stuck against the walls of his esophagus and he cannot stop you. So, he tries once again to grab your hand once he’s caught up to your long strides, but you pull back and face his own regretful features.

“Please don’t,” You shake your head. “Don’t pity me right now, ok?”

“I don’t… I don’t pity you. I ain’t got a clue what I’m supposed to say.” Atsumu is at a loss of what to do. “Am I still allowed to see you?”

The look you give is riddled with vulnerability and unshed tears. “Of course you are, Atsumu. But is it ok if I don’t see you for a day or two? I just need to get my feelings in check.”

He nods and watches you leave.

* * *

When Atsumu gets back to the shrine, he’s noticeably quiet. He doesn’t respond to Suna’s smart-ass remark about his contemplative expression, nor does he react when Ginjima takes the leftover onigiri off of his plate that you made them the day before.

The other Kitsune speak to Osamu, hoping the younger twin has some inkling as to the melancholic demeanor of his twin, but he lacks an answer. But he knows that Atsumu disappeared down into the forest because he felt the vibrations of your presence in the atmosphere. With a stupid grin, he absently told him he’d be back later and ran down the shrine steps in his fox form on all fours. So, he knows that if he was to ask about his brother’s shift in attitude, you would be the reason.

He figures that ripping off the bandaid and moving forward with asking the pressing question will solve things quicker. Yet, the minute he speaks, he’s surprised.

“‘Tsumu—,”

“Y/n said she loves me.” 

Osamu’s jaw drops. It isn’t the revelation that shocks him, but that he didn’t have to pry the information out of him.

“Then what the hell’re ya moping around for?” 

When there isn’t an answer the younger twin fears the worst. Did you tell him you loved him as in past tense? Or did his brother reject you? His eyes moved back and forth over Atsumu’s face, trying to go over the possible scenarios. It isn’t until Atsumu explains the entire situation from the time he found you asleep against a tree that Osamu knows multiple errors occurred.

“For someone with an ego like yers, I don’t get how you didn’t pick up that she loved you. The favoritism was glaringly obvious, you dipshit.”

Atsumu grimaces, “How?”

He starts from the first moment he noticed the beginnings of something that could be deeper than friendship

_Osamu enjoyed lounging out in your backyard and napping in the sun while you had the back door open, letting the warm breeze flow through. You joined him in a small lawn chair and eased yourself back with a book in hand, ready to enjoy. His brother, as if the act was completely natural, sat himself between your legs and used your thigh as a cushion. Without looking away from your book, your fingertips roamed over the muscles of his neck and into his hairline. He watched as Atsumu’s eyelids fluttered and fell shut under the comfort of your ministrations._

_This intimate act could have been written off easily. After all, you and they are very tactile creatures, and it was common for you to allow them to fall asleep on you. A cuddle or two was always welcomed._

_But it was how you stopped playing with his hair and settled your hand onto his chest that caught his attention. It was how Atsumu kept his eyes shut, but further nestled into the warmth of your thigh and lifted his hand to find yours. It was when he laced his fingers with yours that Osamu noticed when you bit your bottom lip, trying to stop your bashful smile from growing._

_Osamu saw the way your eyes would linger on Atsumu when everyone else was relaxing at the house. How you’d find him across the room and observe his movements. If you could comment on one of his over the top remarks, you’d do it just to get a rise out of him, often teaming up with Osamu or Suna for the fun of it. Your eyes would shine with delight whenever Atsumu would laugh, despite the onslaught of sarcasm directed his way. Looking at him made you into a child on Christmas morning; the excitement, the warmth, the twinkle that lit up your entire person. All of it happened around him._

“You mean t’ tell me you _didn’t_ catch on to any of that?”

Atsumu opens and closes his mouth several times. “Not that I _didn’t,_ but I tried to ignore it.”

“How shitty of you. Imagine how she feels knowing you saw her affection for you but elected to ignore it?”

“Stop! I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. You’re just being a jerk!” The order twin digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. He feels like he’s about to cry. “It’s fine like this. It’s better to have yer feelings hurt sooner rather than later.”

A look of puzzlement crosses Osamu’s face as he peers at his brother. “What the hell does that mean?” Atsumu silently gazes at him and waits until realization dawns on his face. “‘Tsumu… you can’t think like that before anything’s even started.”

Atsumu shakes his head. He looks terrified. “I won’t be able to handle it.”

Osamu wraps his brother in a hug and squeezes tight. “You both deserve to be loved. Don’t turn away from a chance at it just cause yer scared alright? Ya know you’d have to deal with the future regardless, but at least you’d know what it was like being loved by her.”

He buries his face in his brother’s neck and shudders. “What do I do, ‘samu? She’s already upset with me.”

“Go see her tonight. I’m sure she’d like to hear what you’ve gotta say.”

* * *

The rest of the day was spent inside of your home, peeling oranges for their rinds and setting them on parchment paper for speed drying. Dried pink rose petals and witch hazel are dropped into the mortar and pestle, an orange candle is set aside with rose and clear quartz. Tangerine tea is resting in a teacup in front of you, steam wafting up from the liquid while you allow it to cool. Everything is set up and ready to ease the internal wounds of a slightly broken heart.

You take a deep breath in while you let the lavender oil fall on top of the dried herbs inside of the mortar. This spell incantation won’t make your feelings for Atsumu disappear, but it would at least help ease the pain of having your words and feelings being equated to nothing but a joke.

You hate that you never thought of asking your mother about what to do when love doesn’t quite work out. At a young age, you were much too hopeful for something that could last, and she was beyond delighted to excite you for the future. Now, without her words for guidance, all you could do was look to the books that she had left behind and pray for a little clarity.

As you grind the materials, an incessant knock comes from your front door. Hand hovering over the doorknob, you know who is behind it. You know that the conversation that awaits you will probably hurt you further, but you can’t bring yourself to ignore him. The spell is still waiting for you to finish it. It will still be there to mend the wounds when he leaves. So, you open the front door, but he speaks before you can ask what he’s doing there.

“I’m scared.”

It takes a second to process what he’s just said. “What?”

“I’m scared of loving you. I’m scared of walking into this head first without taking the future into consideration.”

You don’t quite understand what he’s saying or what any of this means. Is he rejecting you? Is he giving you the excuse that he couldn’t form earlier today?

There is the soft pitter pattering of rain falling behind him, and you’re unsure if the weather is because of your own feelings or the rainy season. It is probably a bit of both because your throat is constricting and your chest is tight; all signs of your control being slightly frayed at the edges.

While you slowly unravel in fear of furthering this conversation, Atsumu continues to speak.

“But most of all, I’m absolutely terrified about what the rest of my life will look like without you.” He crosses the threshold of your home, forcing you to back up as he progresses forward, and he kicks the door closed. “You might be a witch and yer lifespan is longer than ordinary humans, but you’re _still_ human. And I’m still a Kitsune.”

Oh, so that was the reason for his silence and apprehension. “Then pretend I never said anything, and you don’t have to love me.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Huh?”

Atsumu pulls you into him; one hand on your waist and the other at your neck. He hovers his lips over yours for a second, grazing plush flesh against one another. “Should’ve known when I couldn’t stand the thought of those other foxes kissin’ ya.”

Finally, he captures your lips with his and when he gets the first taste of you he inhales deeply through his nose. Everything that you are is encompassing him entirely, and he feels lost in a maze that is overflowing with a plethora of how you make him feel. Gentle touches against soft skin, hair tickling his neck when you fell asleep against him, hand fitting perfectly inside of his, and the dazzling smile you send his way when he does something a little stupid. He’s in love with all of it. He’s in love with you.

When he pulls away, he exhales with a short laugh and presses his forehead against yours.

“I love how you’re too proud to pull the weeds using yer magic. I love that despite how the people here have treated you, you still give them yer best. I love that ya challenge me and don’t let me get away with anything.” His eyes are still closed as he leans in another time, pecking soft kisses on your lips, cheeks, and jaw. “I love that you’re here with me and not anyone else.”

“Like your brother?” You poke fun with a chuckle. 

“Yes,” he pinches your side, face scrunching up in mock disgust. “Especially that idiot, but he’s the one that pushed me to be here.”

Without him knowing, his ears popped out the moment he kissed you. His tails have a mind of their own and are tickling your ankles as they move around your calves and up to your arms. They’re moving with the excitement from the body they are attached to. 

Spell incantation forgotten, you pull him to the couch and watch the moment his cheeks brighten from a delicate pink to a bright red. He finally realizes that his ears and tails have emerged accidentally, and he shakes himself out so they disappear before he sits. Atsumu pulls your legs into his lap, not anywhere near ready to not have as much of you touching him as possible.

“I may not live as long as you will, but I promise to love you longer than either of our lifespans, ok?” You prop your chin up on his shoulder and place a delicate kiss to his jawline. “Come find me after you’re done serving Inari-sama.”

Atsumu gives a low whistle and massages his fingers into the meat of your calves to distract himself. “That’s a whole lot of waiting. You sure you’re up for that?”

“Well,” you shimmy yourself closer to him so you can settle your head nicely on his shoulder; his hands slide up to settle on your thighs. “I think the time we spend together will make whatever amount of waiting worth it. Don’t you?”

He leans back a bit to get a look at you through his eyelashes. You can’t help but to trace along the bridge of his nose with your index finger and over the bow of his lip.

“Yeah,” he sighs happily, and it is one of the most relieving sounds you’ve heard from him. Atsumu brings your hand up to his heart and presses it there. “Loving you will make a lot of things worthwhile.”

Before he leans in for another kiss, you ask, “You gonna kiss me, fox?”

He rolls his eyes, but Atsumu kisses the smile on your lips and mutters an _‘I love you’_ against the soft skin. He bumps his nose gently against yours before wrapping you up in his arms and holding on for the rest of your lives.


	7. Kita's Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels mostly like angst, but it’s pretty bittersweet longing until the end. Kita was one I had show a lot of tender affection in the main story.❤️

Kita doesn’t know how obvious he is. When he looks at you entertaining the others, he thinks he is being slick except you are highly aware of his eyes and the reason for their attention. Now, the other foxes have made jokes and elbowed you in the ribs when they’ve caught him staring.

“Y/n,” they sing near your ears, “Kita is givin’ you googly eyes again!” They snicker.

But you know a different truth. Every time you look in the mirror you see her; the shape of her eyes, the apples of her cheeks, the slope of her nose, and the swell of her lips.

When Kita stares, all he is seeing is the reflection of your mother.

* * *

In the dim yellow light of the porch, Akagi sits next to you and watches the stars twinkle brighter as the sun disappears for the day. He’s been stopping by more often for tea in the afternoon when he’s finished his daily duties. The company is comfortable and helps to pass the time until the walls of your home are surrounded by bustling rambunctious younger foxes.

“You’ve been avoiding Shinsuke lately.” His words are soft and said before a large drink of his tea.

Although his statement shocks you slightly, you do not yield to the emotion. Instead, you too take a sip of your tea and tilt your head to the side in inquiry.

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s a subtle difference. You’ve gradually lessened the time you’re around him in order not to garner attention, but it’s enough for me to notice that you’ve kept yourself busier so you can’t accept his invitations for company.”

You look away from Akagi and down at the calm liquid in your cup and gaze at the faint reflection of your face. “Can I ask you something, Michi?”

He moves closer until you’re hip to hip and he leans his head to catch your gaze. “Of course.”

“He was in love with my mother, wasn’t he?”

Akagi twitches at your question, but he nods. “Yes, he was.” He gives pause, watching you resign to the confirmation. “But what does that have to do with you avoiding him?”

“Everyone seems to think that he likes me.”

“Do his feelings bother you?”

You shake your head. “No, it isn’t that.”

“Then I don’t get—,”

Interrupting, you ask, “who do I look like?”

“What?”

“When you look at me, what do you see?”

Akagi blinks once, and then he blinks again. “Yer mom.”

As the two of you stare at one another, the pieces begin to fit in their rightful places inside of his mind. Eyebrows raise high on the forehead, eyes widen, and mouth hands slightly open. The realization then morphs into refutation; rejecting the implication.

Michinari takes another sip of his tea to clear his own mind. “No, Shinsuke would never like you _just_ because of yer resemblance to her!”

“Consciously, maybe.”

“You’re sayin’ he’s unaware of it?” You shrug. “Y/n…”

“Look,” With a sigh you stand up, jostling Akagi a bit. “I remember the stories of the grey-haired fox and how he wrapped her up in his arms for protection whenever she felt too overwhelmed.” The fog rolled in and within it you could hear their voices. “How gentle he was with her and the calm sadness of his eyes when she told him she was leaving.”

Kita emerges at the head of the rest, leading them towards your home. The surrounding energy is calm, but never stagnant as he is always aware of his surroundings.

“Y/n,” Akagi whispers. “Do you like Shinsuke?”

“ _‘Like’_?” You repeat, not taking your eyes off of Kita’s approaching form. “Oh, I think it’s something much worse than that.”

* * *

_By the Koi pond in the shrine, Kita watched as you fed the fish seedless watermelon right from your palm. It’s amusing to him, the way you spoke to them like they were communicative beings. You had given them names and would often ask about their days or scold them over bullying one another. It reminded him terribly of how he’d bring your mother to the pond._

_“She used to call them ‘little gluttons’,” he said with stars in his eyes._

_“Hm?” With a grin you looked at him, unsure of who he meant._

_“Your mother,” he clarified. “I used to bring her here to feed the koi fish, too. She thought it was funny how they’d practically eat anything and everything.”_

_The smile on your face dimmed, and Kita kicked himself for bringing up a sore subject. He didn’t know how to approach the topic of your mother; he understood the wounds were still fresh but couldn’t figure out when or what the correct thing to say was._

_“Right,” you chuckled, but it sounded artificial to his ears. “Sometimes I forget that you were close.”_

_“Very,” he sighed and noticed that although you were still smiling, your eyes were sad. “Y/n?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_When the last piece of watermelon was nibbled straight out of your hand, you stood to face the fox. “Pardon?”_

_“For bringing up yer mom, you seemed sad when I mentioned her.”_

_You took a step toward him and reached out. His instincts told him to shut his eyes, so he did. Kita shivered as he felt the tips of your fingers trace along the edges of his hairline and your thumb ghost across his bottom lip._

_“Who said that’s why I was sad?”_

_His eyes fluttered open at your words and was met with the same downhearted smile. He didn’t know what to do, but when he could not answer, you turned around with your hands secured behind your back, and headed back to where you knew the others were._

_Kita watched you get further and further away before looking back at the koi in the pond and asked, “Do you guys know why she was sad?”_

* * *

There’s a particular patient you’ve been trying to help with a parasite for a month and a half now that does not like the diagnosis you’ve given them. There’s a Koshō yōkai’s snake-like body nestled between his heart and diaphragm, but there is nothing you can do—even with magic—to pull it out. This yōkai’s infection is a terminal illness.

The man feels swindled, betrayed, and although you have not charged him a single penny for your efforts to at least _try to_ save him, he is still rattling with rage. Before you’re able to react properly, the back of his hand and the ring on his finger collides with your cheekbone. There is a sharp ringing in your ears as your body processes to blow, the pain, and what feels like a weeping open wound on your cheek.

When you look at him, his mouth is moving wide with spit flying and he is baring his teeth aggressively. There is nothing in your mind except for the image of him pressed harshly against the wall and a forceful grip slowly squeezing the breath from him.

He’s sputtering for air; eyes now wide and terrified.

“What did you hope to accomplish by assaulting a witch?” You approach his pathetic trembling form and stare apathetically as tears form in his eyes. “You come into my home, beg me to treat you for free, but as soon as I cannot give you the desired results you become violent?”

The man opens his mouth and forces out something that sounds like a garbled apology.

“What was that?” You just barely let up on the pressure against his throat and make a show of tilting your ear towards him.

“Please,” he wheezes, “please let me go. I’m sorry, please don’t kill me.”

You scoff and the front door swings open with a twitch of your wrist, then you step out of the way as the man flies out of it, landing flat on his ass in the grass.

“Next time you raise your hand to someone, remember how quickly you begged for your life.”

With an audience of adults coming home from work and high schoolers leaving their extra-curricular activities, there is a crowd to witness your actions, but you don’t care.

“Don’t step foot near my home again.”

Thankfully, that night the foxes are too busy to stop by. They sent messenger yōkai to let you know of their duties, as they had piled on heavily because of something occurring in the kami’s world. You’d hoped they’d be much too busy to even pop their heads in to say hello or to check up on you—in Suna’s case, you hoped he wouldn’t stop by to hide away from his duties. Anyway, them not stopping by would allow your wound to heal under the applied salve without having to answer incessant questions on the matter.

But luck wasn’t on your side. The next day, although the cut itself has taken beautifully to the salve and is nearly closed up, there is a disgusting stippled purpling surrounding it. With a sigh, you go about your day, helping other townspeople with their ailments—all of them eyeing the discoloration—and reinforcing the protection charms around your home.

In the afternoon Kenma walks in with bags in his arms, but stops in his tracks when you come to the door to greet him.

“What happened?”

Kuroo bumps into his back and grunts, “Hey, Kenma! You’re in the way—,” He blinks once and then his expression suddenly becomes darker. “Who did that to you?”

With a sigh, you pull them both inside and shut the door. “Come on now, take off your shoes and I’ll help put the groceries away.”

“Y/n, tell us.” Although they listen, Kenma’s tone allows no room for argument. He wants an answer immediately. “We were only gone for a day.”

“Do you remember the man I was helping about a month ago?”

Kuroo sets his own bags on the table and lifts your chin up to him, turning your face to the side so he can inspect the bruising.

“The one with the parasite?” He asks, and when you nod, his frown becomes deeper. “We told you not to treat him.”

Kenma unpacks the groceries. “He was terminal to begin with.”

“Well, I at least wanted to try.” You gently bat Kuroo’s hand away to help the other grumbling car.

“Yeah and look where that got you.”

You roll your eyes. “Yes, well, I scared him so badly he begged for his life and cried a bit. I’m fairly certain I came out on top in the end.”

Kuroo reached over to pat your head. “That’s our little dark witch”

“Shut up,” you chuckle. “He’s lucky he didn’t meet me before I could fully handle my power.”

There’s a hum from Ken and he gazes at you with sharp, playful eyes. “Has your white knight seen you yet?”

“My what?”

“Ya know,” the older cat plays along with his friend. “The big bad fox with all of his silent authority! He had nothing to say about his precious little human getting hurt?”

You elbow both of them and continue organizing the food into its proper place. “Shut up, the Kitsune have been busy with their deity duties. They haven’t been by here for a bit.”

The Nekomata sense something in the way you’re holding yourself and the responses you give. The tone is just on the edge of melancholic and draped in gentle despondency; they don’t like the way the words are falling from your lips.

“Stop that,” Kuroo says with a furrowed brow.

“Stop what?”

“ _That_ ,” Kenma emphasizes. “You’re upset about something, what is it?”

There would be no harm in coming clean to them. After all, they would probably know better than most the way Kita’s eyes linger and how they would have stayed on your mother’s form as well. You could trust them not to make light of your concern.

“Do I—,” you paused for a second after putting away the last bag of groceries. “How much do I resemble my mother?”

You face the both of them and await their analysis.

“There are similarities; both in the way you carry yourself and in your physical features.” Kenma’s eyes narrowed, “Why?”

A grimace appears on the older one’s face. “Are you thinking that fox only likes you because you look like your mom?”

“Perhaps.”

“That’s asinine, Y/n!”

“Her concerns aren’t entirely unfounded, Kuroo.” Kenma disagrees, “You remember how he looked at her all those years ago.”

Remembering causes Kuroo to snicker. “He isn’t entirely fond of us.”

“Why not?” You inquire.

“Because we stole something he liked.” Kuroo disappears into your workroom for a minute and upon returning has a photo in hand. “He cared a lot for your mom, maybe he liked her more than he realized, but Kenma and I know he doesn’t want us taking you too.”

In the picture is an image of an unchanged Kita Shinsuke, but a younger version of the woman you knew. There are cherry blossom trees floating down and they’re laughing—Kita is _laughing_ by her side as the harsh wind blows. She looks like she is struggling to stand still, but he has his hands secured on her shoulders and waist. There is too much resemblance in her features and in the way you both laugh. Obviously, she is your mother and looking similar is inevitable, but this situation makes it tough. Something inside of you twists and turns without permission; threatening to break open.

You hand the picture back and Kuroo says, “This was one of her favorites. There’s more of the others—,”

“I’m okay,” You say and force yourself to chuckle. “I think you only confirmed my worries.”

The cats looked concerned now. “That wasn’t my intention, Y/n.”

“I know, and what I feel isn’t your fault.”

Falling for someone that loved a ghost was no one's fault but your own.

* * *

_Kita heard you talking about seeing the town from above the trees. You told the twins you envy their buoyancy; moving from rooftop to rooftop and settling with perfect balance atop the shingles. You said that you wished the wind was strong enough to lift you off of your feet, because you’d do it yourself if you could._

_Atsumu tried to make a joke that Osamu could only keep balance because of all the food he consumed. Osamu retorted back saying that his brother was only light on his feet because nothing was inside his head to make it heavy._

_“Airhead,” Osamu scoffed._

_“Glutton,” Atsumu sneered._

_But it wasn’t until the younger twin wrapped his arm loosely around your waist and offered to take you up that Kita felt something sharp zing through his body. In a flash, you were pulled completely away from the twins and pressed chest to chest with the elder fox._

_“You’ll drop her,” he said, then left two dumbfounded foxes behind with wide eyes as he lifted you up towards the trees._

_With your arms wrapped around his neck, you could see a faint blush up and around his cheeks. A soft warmth crept up your neck before burying your face into his. Although it was fairly normal for you to cuddle with a few of them, it was rare for you and Kita to be this close to one another. Your encounters were filled with careful smiles and gentle touches, leaned in whispers to tease the others and the occasional hug when you felt the need._

_But this—with his arms holding you tight like he was afraid to let go, fingers clutching at your flesh, it felt much too intimate than all the other soft touches. There was a slight possessiveness in the way he held you, not even letting go when he landed nimbly at the very peak of the tallest point in the shrine._

_His hand moved up your back to squeeze the nape of your neck. “Aren’t ya gonna look?”_

_“Hm?” You hummed with your face still buried in his neck._

_“Didn’t you wanna see the town?”_

_Slowly, you lifted your head to see the many rows of different rooftops and wide open spaces of green, swaying grass, and fields made of rice. There are the distant train stations and far off roads with fastly moving cars, and you wonder how they ever come down from here—how a vision of hills and houses and mountains could ever be left unattended. There was so much to see and so much one could miss._

_“Beautiful, ain’t it?”_

_“Gorgeous.” You looked back at him and there was the echo of a smile on his lips, and you wanted nothing more to kiss it. Instead, you settle for his cheek. “Thank you, Shin.”_

_The once faint blush deepened across his skin, and it wasn’t quite clear whether it had to do with the kiss itself or the fact that you used his name. But he turned his head and brushed his nose gently against yours._

_“You’re welcome.”_

* * *

There is something in the air that night, something that rustles the leaves and ripples the leftover puddles of day old rain. The wind blows through your home and causes a ruckus with your chimes, and suddenly you’re feeling uneasy. It is unclear whether the ‘thing’ that’s coming is a living being or a warning from something beyond.

“Did you feel that?” You mutter to the empty room, knowing the cats will hear you from wherever they are.

“Yes.” Kenma leaps down the stairs, agile body slinking from furniture piece to furniture piece in order to peer out of the window. “Someone’s here.”

“Someone that shouldn’t be?”

Kuroo is the next to appear, stretching on top of the creaking floorboards. “It’s Kita.”

“Then why does the atmosphere… feel—,”

“Foreboding? Like some scary demon yōkai is going to come from the land of the dead and wreak havoc among us?”

Kenma’s comment leaves you a bit astonished. “Yeah, that.”

He flicks his tail against the drapery of the window. “That’s just how the universe likes to communicate; with violent auras that feel menacing to people sensitive to it, but a mere slap on the wrist to everyone else.”

Then comes the knock at the door and you call out that it’s open.

As the door creaks, Kita says, “Announcing that you keep yer door unlocked at night is dangerous, Y/n.”

“And who, pray tell, will intrude on a witch?”

He shuts the door behind him. “Anyone that thinks they can take advantage of—,”

His sentence cuts off when he gets a good look at you. In the soft lighting of the room, the bruise on your cheek must translate much darker than it truly is.

“What’s that?” He asks with his body frozen in place, but his eyes never leave your face. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know, I told a patient the truth of his illness and it rewarded me with a hit to the face.”

_It rewarded me with a hit to the face._

The words seemed to echo in the room, but you and the Nekomata were unaware of the parallels. How your mother had uttered something similar to Kita when she had appeared in front of him with a similar bruise, but on the opposite side of her face. It was the day she told him she’d be leaving. Is this where you told him the same? Is this where you would take the two cats that sat on either side of you and left town? Would he ever see you again? Is his company once again not enough? There’s a loud thudding in his ears that seems to drown out the surrounding sounds, but never his intrusive thoughts. 

Kita can see you approach him, but it is like his soul isn’t attached to his earthly vessel. It feels like he is faraway, unable to breathe, drowning in his own anxieties. You frame his face with your hands and cradle him. He knows you’re calling out to him, trying to center him and bring him back to you, but it doesn’t work. Right now, as he looks at you—or maybe through you—all he can see is your mother and the look on her face when she left. He mutters your mother’s name, and he feels you flinch.

“You can pretend I’m her.”

_He can’t hear you, but you look sad. Why do you look sad again?_

It forces him to find his voice. “What?”

“My mom. You see her when you look at me, don’t you? I know you miss her and that you loved her, so,” his eyes flicker back and forth between yours when you take a breath. “If it helps you find peace and happiness, you can pretend I’m her.”

Kita says nothing further. But what he does is glide his thumb over the healing cut before wrapping his arms around your neck and back, holding you tightly to him. He doesn’t know what you mean when you say that he can pretend, but he thinks somewhere along the lines his feelings have been misinterpreted.

Soon, he’ll clear things up, but right now he is shaking in the embrace after coming down from what he feels might’ve been a panic attack. He wonders how you dealt with these before and knows that at some point you probably had to handle them alone. He’s glad you were here. He’s glad you’re holding him just as tightly with your fingers balled up in the fabric of his clothes.

Like this, with you holding one another, he’s content. 

Since calming him, Shinsuke has done little to leave your side. He’s laid a bandage over your wound with the salve you provided him with. He’s conjured new clothes; changing from his modern “blending in” wear to sweatpants and a loose tee. His body is barely moving and his eyelids are heavy, so once you change yourself and lay in bed, he falls directly after you.

Kita lays his head on your chest and drapes an arm across your stomach. He keeps his eyes open to watch your fingers glide in the air, directing things back into their proper places so you don’t have to move. It’s only when the covers shift up over the two of you that he closes his eyes. On a deep inhale, your fingers bury themselves into his hair and he lets out a throaty groan.

It takes a while for his body to relax against you. Kita has never allowed himself this. He’s never taken the time with you—or even your mother—to relax by your side like all the others have. Like Aran or Ginjima or even Suna, they’ve all had the pleasure of being comfortably tucked into your side, fast asleep.

“I can hear you thinking, Shin.”

“No, ya can’t,” he mumbles.

He can feel the subtle vibrations of your chuckle against his cheek and forearm. It only makes him move closer to you. As fingernails drift along the column of his neck and the slope of his shoulder, there is the violent desire to be here next to you for the rest of his nights. He has tamped down the feelings inside of him, telling himself that whatever these emotions were they weren’t allowed to be heard or felt. You’d disappear like her; for anything precious to a Kitsune spirit—a being that lives far longer than most—there is the promise of inevitable decay.

* * *

When he wakes, he is still in the same position as when he fell asleep: head on your chest and arm tucked around your waist. Kita lifts himself up on his forearm and gazes fondly at your sleeping face. There is nothing more in this world that he wants to protect other than you. He’s already contemplated the idea of asking Inari-Sama to release him from the remaining years of his duties; there are nine other Kitsune protectors available to fill his spot. He never wants to leave this bed, and he says so out loud.

“You don’t have to.” You open your eyes and are met with sharp brown ones, and Shinsuke’s slight bed head. He asks you to repeat what you muttered. “I said, you don’t have to leave this bed.”

“And what exactly are you insinuating?”

“Whatever you want.”

Kita has already realized that _this_ —every day—is what he wants with you, and what he _wants_ is to ask if you feel the same. Yet, his sleep ladened mind takes a minute to ebb your repeated words from last night: _You can pretend I’m her._

“I want to talk about what ya said last night.”

The smile that softens your eyes falls ever so slightly and you try to sit up, but he stops you with a hand on your chest.

“Please, don’t get up,” he pleads, and moves his hand to cup the side of your face. “I want to stay like this, but understand it’s because I care about _you_ and not yer mom.”

“You loved her, right?” The question is tightly coiled with emotion as it crawls out of you. “Looking at me, being in this house, must be a blessing and a curse.”

Kita blinks slowly. “Did yer mother ever tell you about our relationship?”

The knot growing in the center of your chest feels as if it’s about to break your ribs. This isn’t a story you want to hear. You don’t want to hear how he fell in love with her—it was obvious enough that her charms and kindness alone wooed all forms of beings in a 25-mile radius. She was captivating, alluring, enchanting, and every single synonym in between.

“No, I know little other than what you and the others have told me. Apart from a few pictures and nostalgic memories that she used to reminisce over.”

Kita traces your eyebrow down to your cheekbone and stops at your upper lip. “I watched her grow up. She was cute and just another little human for us to watch over, but as she got older, we became closer and she made me laugh.”

You hated the jealousy bubbling in your stomach, especially toward your own mother.

“But I never thought about what the feeling in my stomach meant when I saw her, because I’d never felt it before. I did nothin’ about it, and then she left.”

“You were only friends?” He nods. “Are you only here with me like this… because you didn’t get to be with her?”

Kita takes the time to find his words and hopes that the right ones make it out. “When I look at you, I can see her mannerisms. Especially how you take care of people so selflessly, and sometimes when you laugh I can almost hear her.”

You’re tensing under him, and he can feel it.

“But she didn’t let ten Kitsune into her house the first night she met ‘em. She didn’t make them food or give ‘em another place to call home. She didn’t go door-to-door tryin’ to convince the other townspeople that the Kitsune weren’t evil spirits, and she surely didn’t make me feel nearly as nervous as you do when I look at ya.”

With trembling fingers, you reach out to brush them through the ends of his hair. “She could’ve.”

“Sure, but she didn’t. _You did_ , and I fell in love with you every second during.”

“Oh,” you’re dumbfounded and try to cover your eyes with your hands. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that!”

Kita chuckles, “What d'you expect me to say?”

“That you thought I was cute, or you kinda liked me, but not that you loved me!”

“Was it not already obvious that I thought you were cute _and_ that I loved you?”

You peek out at him from behind your fingers, tears welling up. “What?”

He tries to pry your hands away. “Were my tails always findin’ their way around you not enough? Or maybe my jealousy towards those cats wasn’t obvious enough? What about my eyes always finding you in a room? How about when I told ya I’d stay with you until yer last sunset?”

Halfheartedly, you hit his shoulder. “You said that about everyone!”

“My point is,” Shinsuke boldly adjusts his position and boxes you in between his arms. “I care about _you_.”

The both of you fall silent under one another’s heavy gaze. He lays his body weight fully on top of you before wrapping his arms underneath your back and flipping the two of you over.

The sudden change in position startles a laugh out of you. “What are you doing?”

Shin does his best to shrug against the sheets. “Givin’ you control.” When you sit up, you’re straddling his waist and his hands shift to your thighs. “And whatever else you need.”

“Whatever I need?”

“Anything you desire.” His eyelids are heavy-lidded as he stares up at you. “My heart, my soul,” his fingers dig into your skin. “Anything that helps prove that I love you, and I want to be with you only.”

“I love you too.” Your thumb tugs gently at his bottom lip. “Thank you for choosing me.”

He sits up as well, shifting you in his lap while his hands keep you close. He presses several soft kisses on your lips. “I’d choose you every time, Y/n.”

“Yeah?” You grin against his lips.

Shinsuke hums and kisses you once more. “And I will for the rest of our days.”


End file.
